Measurement of Energy Spectrum of Electrons Field-Emitted from Diamond Field-Emitter Arrays

Abstract

A retarding mesh analyzer was used to measure the electron energy spectrum field emitted from a single tip of a Diamond Field Emitter Array. The emission was dominated by adsorbed gas atoms and molecules on the surface which were both spatially and temporally unstable. As a result, the spectra taken had highly variant spectral features and there was an order of magnitude span in the emitted current. The spectrum from a clean surface roughly obeyed the thermal field emission model and was consistent with reported spectra from a nitrogen-doped, diamond-like carbon film.