Interaction between carbon nanotubes and substrate and its implication on field emission mechanism

The interaction between carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and substrate plays an important role in the process of field emission. A double-barrier model is adopted to analyze the difference of field emission for various CNT films. Result shows that the width of interface barrier determines the emission performance. For CNTs on titanium, the best emission performance is attributed to the removal of interlayer barrier by the formation of conductive titanium carbide. These facts might shed new light on the field emission mechanism for CNTs.