Effect of annealing on field emission properties of nanodiamond coating

Field electron emission of detonation nanodiamond (ND) coated on a titanium substrate by electrophoretic deposition is investigated. It is found that thermal annealing can significantly improve the field emission properties of the ND layer, which can be mainly attributed to the formation of the TiC phase between diamond and Ti. The first-principles calculated results show that the formation of transition layers can lower the interface barrier and enhance the field electron emission of ND coating. Besides, the transformation of diamond to graphite after annealing has been revealed by Raman spectra. This transformation also benefits the electron emission enhancement.