Field emission from alligned carbon nanotubes grown on patterned oxide layers

In this paper, we report field emission from carbon nanotubes/fibers selectively grown on patterned silicon dioxide, without a pre-deposited metal catalyst layer. The nanotubes were grown by the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of xylene (C/sub 8/H/sub 10/), using ferrocene(Fe(C/sub 5/H/sub 5/)/sub 2/) as the catalyst precursor, on n/sup ++/ silicon substrate with an over layer of thermally grown oxide, at growth temperature of 800-900 /spl deg/C. The influence of the oxide thickness when varied 15nm to 100nm, on the field emission properties is reported.