Characterization of field emission from carbon nanotube fibers in varying cathode-anode gaps

This paper presents field emission (FE) from a single carbon nanotube (CNT) fiber with varying anode- cathode (AK) gap distances. We found that the field enhancement factor depends strongly on the finite AK gap distance, due to the combination of geometrical effects and possible fiber morphology change. The slope drop in the Fowler-Northeim (FN) plot of the FE data in the high voltage is related to the electrical contact resistance between the CNT fiber and the substrate.