Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2011
The field emission properties of hydrogenated amorphous carbon containing up to 29at% nitrogen (a-C:N:H), grown in an integrated distributed electron cyclotron resonance (IDECR) reactor were studied using a sphere-plane geometry. All films were smooth in character and required a high field (20-70V/νm) activation process before emission, which created micron- sized craters in the emission region. Further analysis suggested that the emission originates from activation-created geometrically enhanced areas around the crater region. Upon low-level nitrogen incorporation (N/N+C≤0.2), the field required for activation decreased from 54V/νm to a minimum value of 20V/νm. The turn-on field required for 1νA of current also decreased, reaching a minimum of 11.3V/νm. The decrease in activation and turn-on field was related to the increase in conductivity observed with increasing nitrogen content. At higher nitrogen concentrations, the increase in activation energy and turn on field for emission may be due to changes in overall material structure, as indicated by the decreasing optical gap