Electrical discharge properties in vacuum by carbon nanotube electrodes

탄소나노튜브 전극에 의한 진공 방전 특성의 평가

Recently, carbon nanotubes(CNTs) have been demonstrated to possess remarkable mechanical and electronic properties, in particular, for field emission applications. Its high aspect ratio and extremely small diameter, hollowness, together with high mechanical strength and high chemical stability, are advantages for use in field emitter. In this paper, we demonstrate electrical discharge properties from carbon nanotube cathode electrodes to use as an emitter electrode of vacuum gauges. Vertically aligned $2{\times}2mm^2$ CNT arrays on the silicon substrate were synthesized by the thermal CVD method on Fe catalytic metal, and a glass patterning by the sand blast method and the silicon/glass anodic bonding processes were applied to make samples with 2 electrodes. The field emission was examined under the vacuum range of $10^{-3}$ Torr.