A fabrication method for field emitter array of carbon nanotubes with improved carbon nanotube rooting

•We developed a method to fabricate a field emitter array of carbon nanotubes (CNTs).•CNT rooting into array of titanium islands was improved at a high temperature.•Titanium nitride film was used to stop reaction between CNT and tantalum substrate.•Strong edge effect was achieved from an array of small circular emitters of CNTs.•The good quality CNT rooting and the edge effect enhanced an emission current.

We have developed a technique for fabrication of a field emitter array (FEA) of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to obtain a high emission current along with a high current density. The FEA was prepared with many small equidistant circular emitters of randomly oriented multiwall carbon nanotubes. The fabrication of a FEA substrate followed with deposition of titanium nitride (TiN) film on a tantalum (Ta) substrate and circular titanium (Ti) islands on the TiN coated Ta substrate in a DC magnetron sputtering coater. CNTs were dispersed on the substrate and rooted into the circular Ti islands at a high temperature to prepare an array of circular emitters of CNTs. The TiN film was applied on a Ta substrate to make a reaction barrier between the Ta substrate and CNTs in order to root CNTs only into the Ti islands without a reaction with the Ta substrate at the high temperature. A high emission current of 31.7 mA with an effective current density of 34.5 A/cm2 was drawn at 6.5 V/μm from a FEA having 130 circular emitters in a diameter of 50 μm and with a pitch of 200 μm. The high emission current was ascribed to the good quality rooting of CNTs into the Ti islands and an edge effect, in which a high emission current was expected from the peripheries of the circular emitters.