Improved field emission properties from carbon nanotubes grown onto micron-sized arrayed silicon pillars with pyramidal bases

•A controllable method to enhance field emission from CNTs using micron-sized arrayed silicon pillars with pyramidal bases•Arrayed silicon pillars contribute to suppressing electric-field-screening among adjacent CNT emitters.•Improved emission performance could be attributed to the random orientation of CNTs and uneven silicon pillar arrays.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were synthesized onto micron-sized arrayed silicon (Si) pillars with pyramidal bases in order to mitigate the electric-field-screening due to densely grown CNTs. Compared with the CNT emitters grown on a flat Si substrate, CNT emitters grown on arrayed Si pillars showed improved field emission properties with a low turn-on field of 2.16 V/μm at 10 μA/cm2 and current density of 550 μA/cm2 at 3.46 V/μm. Field enhancement factor was calculated according to the Fowler–Nordheim theory. The resultant field enhancement factor of CNT emitters on arrayed Si pillars was higher than that of CNT emitters on a flat substrate, which revealed that the formation of arrayed Si pillars could be an effective method to suppress electric-field-screening among adjacent CNT emitters.