Search for Electronic Cooling from Carbon-Based Field Emitters

To observe possible electronic cooling, this paper presents an experiment consisting of gluing a small silicon chip onto a thermistor. The chip contains a 1 mm diameter emitter film near its center that is a composite of nanocrystalline graphite and carbon nanotubes. Results show that the resonant type I-V curve diminishes when the emitter material is in the vacuum chamber for a prolonged time of several weeks at pressures of about 6 times 10^-9 Torr. It is conjectured that adsorbates, rather than a thin film act as the resonance material, and that they become desorbed with time. Regeneration is achieved by venting the vacuum system to air, allowing adsorbates to interact with the emitter material