Field emission from a large area of vertically-aligned carbon nanofibers with nanoscale tips and controlled spatial geometry

A cost-effective method was used to fabricate large area (e.g. 2.5 × 2.5 cm2 for a pitch of 0.5 μm) nanometer scale pyramid arrays with precise and controllable location, spacing and size by interference lithography. Using this method a large-area of vertically-aligned carbon nanofibers (VACNFs) with different interfiber-distance-to-fiber-height ratios and fiber aspect ratios were synthesised. Very sharp tipped VACNFs were obtained and their field emission properties were measured and are compared to results in the literature. We find that the field emission performance of VACNF arrays is optimized when the interfiber-distance-to-fiber-height ratio is equal to 1, in line with some experimental findings but different from some predictions.