Field emission under extreme conditions from carbon nanopearls in a foam-like arrangement

This paper reports the CVD synthesis and field emission (FE) properties of a novel cost-effective carbon nanomaterial, 'carbon nanopearls', monodisperse solid 150 nm diameter nanospheres of carbon that form continuous 3D chains analogous to strings of pearls. Nanopearls-tips present good emission stabilities for total currents of /spl mu/A during hours with a simple voltage retroaction loop. This is promising for applications that require FE under very poor vacuum, in the range of 10/sup -5/ to 10/sup -4/ Torr for example.