Field Emission of Individual Carbon Nanotubes and its Improvement by Decoration with Ruthenium Dioxide Super-Nanoparticles

To reduce energy consumption by carbon nanotubes (CNTs) used as emitters in applications such as field emission display, and electron-beam-induced deposition (EBID), nano-sized metallic super-nanoparticles of ruthenium dioxide are decorated on the surface of CNTs. We studied field emission properties and found that the work voltage is 23% lower than that of as-grown CNT emitters. To obtain conductive nanostructures, electron-beam-induced deposition using an individual multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWNT) emitter decorated with ruthenium dioxide is realized by introducing tungsten hexacarbonyl (W(CO)6) as a precursor. The tungsten mass in deposits is rich at 98.89% as determined by energy x-ray dispersive spectrometer (EDS). We thus obtained nearly pure-metal deposits.