Growth of individual carbon nanotubes on an array of TiN/Ni nanodots patterned by e-beam lithography and defined by dry etching for field emission application

In this paper, we demonstrate a new technique to realize TiN/Ni nanodots array on silicon substrate using e-beam lithography and dry etching techniques. After patterning the Ni nanodisk (7 nm thick, 150 nm in diameter) at perfectly controlled location, individual vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) were grown using plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition (PECVD). In addition, a field emission cathode (1 mm diameter circular emission area) based on a hexagonal array (20μm spacing) of individual VACNTs delivered a high emission current of 4.23 mA for an applied electric field of 22.5V/μm.