Abstract
Multiwalled carbon nanotubes were grown using chemical vapor deposition inside small apertures having a horizontal gate and a sidewall insulator spacer. Emission currents up to 140 nA per cell at 63 V have been obtained. These arrays have exhibited a gate current as low as 2.5% of the anode current throughout the entire gate voltage range, representing the lowest gate to anode current ratio of gated nanotube emitters reported to date. We attribute this feature to the emitter geometry and method of fabrication. The overall fabrication method required only a few and simple processing steps.