The influence of the ion bombardment on the current stability of field-emission cathodes of carbon nanotubes

The significant current degradation of the carbon nanotubes cathode was found in the presented work. This current instability came from the adsorption desorption processes on the cathode surface. During the long-time tests the periodical changing of the cathode electron work function was shown. The proposed model allowed to find the dependence of the electron work function changing with the time. This model has a good agreement with the experimentally obtained results.