Fabrication and field emission properties of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes

In this paper, we present some comparisons concerning field emission as well as processing parameters from two types of nanostructures, namely multiwall carbon nanotubes grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and metal nanowires grown by electrochemical deposition in porous membranes. Various treatments are presented, either during or after deposition, in order to decrease the growth temperature and to improve the uniformity of the emitted current. All the processes presented here are relatively simple and potentially low cost and could be applied to LCD backlighting applications in the near future.