Abstract
Vertically aligned conducting ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) nanorods are fabricated using the reactive ion etching method incorporated with nanodiamond particles as mask. High electrical conductivity of 275Ω·cm -1 is obtained for UNCD nanorods. The microplasma cavities using UNCD nanorods as cathode show enhanced plasma illumination characteristics of low threshold field of 0.21 V/μm with plasma current density of 7.06 mA/cm 2 at an applied field of 0.35 V/μm. Such superior electrical properties of UNCD nanorods with high aspect ratio potentially make a significant impact on the diamond-based microplasma display technology. © 2012 Sankaran et al.