Journal of Inorganic Materials

• Research Paper • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Ar Microwave Plasma Treatment of Carbon Nanotubes Film by Electrophoretic Deposition

QIN Yu-Xiang, HU Ming   

  1. (School of Electronic Information Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China)
  • Received:2007-06-18 Revised:2007-08-16 Published:2008-05-20 Online:2008-05-20

Abstract: The carbon nanotubes (CNTs) film was prepared on Si substrate by electrophoretic deposition (EPD) and treated by Ar microwave plasma. The microstructure and field emission properties of the as-prepared CNTs films before and after treatment were investigated. High-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) and Raman spectroscope reveal the microstructural changes of CNTs after the plasma treatment as evidence of the appearance of a large amount of structural defects, the sticking with nanometer size and “needle-like” tips. The field emission measurements indicate that the turn on electric field is increased slightly after treatment. The sample treated by Ar plasma for 10min shows the best field emission J-E property. Compared to that of untreated sample, the threshold field of the CNTs film treated for 10min decreases from 3.12V/μm to 2.54V/μm. And after plasma treatment, the emission current density at applied electric field of 3.3V/μm increase from 18.4mA/cm2 to 60.7mA/cm2. The mechanism of variation of field emission properties after plasma treatment is discussed.

Key words: carbon nanotubes, electrophoretic deposition, plasma treatment, field emission

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