Field emission from vertically aligned few-layer graphene

The electric field emission behavior of vertically aligned few-layer graphene was studied in a parallel plate-type setup. Few-layer graphene was synthesized in the absence of any metallic catalyst by microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition with gas mixtures of methane and hydrogen. The deposit consists of nanostructures that are several micrometers wide, highly crystalline stacks of four to six atomic layers of graphene, aligned vertically to the substrate surface in a high density network. The few-layer graphene is found to be a good field emitter, characterized by turn-on fields as low as 1 V/mu m and field amplification factors up to several thousands. We observe a clear dependence of the few-layer graphene field emission behavior on the synthesis parameters: Hydrogen is identified as an efficient etchant to improve field emission, and samples grown on titanium show lower turn-on field values and higher amplification factors when compared to samples grown on silicon. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.2999636]