Low-threshold field emission from carbon nano-clusters

Detonation carbon materials (DCM) composed of non-equilibrium nano-structures show the low-threshold field emission (LTFE). These materials have forward-looking application especially due to high reproducibility of the LTFE-phenomenon on a surface of emitter, where the emitting centers are homogeneously distributed. In this paper we link the effect of LTFE to the nature of the corresponding wave functions based on the experiment results obtained for DCM by the field effect on electrolytes. As we had shown before DCM had been described by an ultra-relativistic dispersion function with extremely small effective mass of electrons and the size-quantization effect had been observed in DCM at even room temperature.Our results based on emission and electrolyte technics of the field-effect measurements in DCM along with modern observations of the field emission in strong electric fields allowed to propose a new resonance transmission model for LTFE-phenomenon, which is alternative to most widely discussed models based on the field-enhancing factors or barrier-lowering mechanisms.

Research highlights
► Detonation carbon materials show the low-threshold field emission.
► Field emission and field effect in electrolyte technics of the measurements are combined.
► We propose a new resonance transmission model for low-threshold field-emission phenomenon.
► The model is alternative to items of field-enhancing factors or barrier-lowering mechanisms models.