Field emission study of small number of carbon fiber field emitters

Experiments and simulation were performed to study the emission characteristics of small number of field emitters. The experiment consists of nine carbon fibers in a square configuration. Voltage-current traces were obtained and compared to four carbon fiber emitters in a linear and square configurations as well as to two carbon fiber emitters in a paired array. Results shows that the turn-on voltage is always larger for the nine carbon fiber emitters as compared to the two and four emitters in linear configuration, and approximately identical to the four emitters in a square configuration. The observations suggest that electric field screening effects depend strongly on the number of emitters, separation between them as well as their geometrical configuration.