Field emission of nanostructured boron nitride thin films in the presence of residual gases

In this paper, field emission was measured in varying atmospheres of different gases, from an on-going study of thin films of polycrystalline boron nitride (BN). The initial results indicate that the nanostructured BN surface exhibit robust emission characteristics in the presence of residual gases such as oxygen, xenon, water vapor, and nitrogen. Also, no permanent effect on the emission characteristics was observed from the exposure of the films to the gas.