The environmental stability of field emission from single-walled carbon nanotubes

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Abstract
We demonstrate long-term field emission stability from single-walled carbon nanotubes. Unballasted nanotubes operate without degradation for over 350 h at 10 −9 Torr . Nanotubes are shown to be significantly less sensitive to operating environments than metallic emitters. In 10 −7 Torr of H 2 O , we demonstrate 100 h of continuous bias field emission with no current degradation. Protrusion growth and current runaway, typical problems for unballasted metal emitters, are not observed with nanotubes. Single-walled nanotubes do show susceptibility to damage by oxidation. We suggest that the exceptional environmental stability of carbon nanotubes is due to a combination of geometry, strong carbon bonding, and the lack of protrusion growth.