Abstract
The field emission characteristics of amorphous carbon (a-C) nanotips structures grown on copper substrates were presented. The a-C nanotips were grown by plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition. It was shown that the field emission characteristics of a-C nanotips were close to those of carbon nanotubes. The results show that a low turn-on field of 1.6 V/μm, a threshold field of 3.8 V/μm and high current density of 3.24 mA/cm 2 at 4.0 V/μm were achieved.