Field Electron Emission Induced Glow Discharge in Nanodiamond Vacuum Diode

Abstract

The present letter extends the prior findings on self-induced heating of solid state field emission devices. It was found that a vacuum diode (base pressure $\sim 10^{-9}$ Torr), that makes use of graphite-rich polycrystalline diamond as cathode material, can switch from diode regime to resistor regime, to glow discharge plasma regime without any external perturbation, i.e. all transitions are self-induced. Combined results of in situ field emission microscopy and ex situ electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy suggested that the nanodiamond cathode of the diode heated to about 3000 K which caused self-induced material evaporation, ionization and eventually micro-plasma formation. Our results confirm that field emission, commonly called cold emission, is a very complex phenomenon that can cause severe thermal load. Thermal load and material runaway could be the major factors causing vacuum diode deterioration, i.e. progressive increase in turn-on field, decrease in field enhancement factor, and eventual failure.

arXiv comment6 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Thermal runaway of metal nano-tips during intense electron emission
• High Quantum Efficiency Ultrananocrystalline Diamond Photocathode: Negative Electron Affinity Meets $n$-doping
• Electron Emission Area Depends on Electric Field and Unveils Field Emission Properties in Nanodiamond Films
• Anisotropic weakly localized transport in nitrogen-doped ultrananocrystalline diamond films
• Electron Emission Projection Imager

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Field emission microscopy of carbon nanotube fibers: evaluating and interpreting spatial emission
• Ampere-class Bright Field Emission Cathode Operated at 100 MV/m
• Systematic benchmarking of planar nitrogen-incorporated ultrananocrystalline diamond field emission electron source: rf conditioning and beam spatio-temporal characteristics