Development of new apparatus for field emission measurement

A field emission measurement profiler, which not only can measure the field emission of the entire film as well as its local points but also can present a two-dimensional map of the current density distribution, is developed. This apparatus is operated under an ultrahigh vacuum condition to measure the field emission distribution of amorphous carbon (a-C) films deposited by a RF magnetron sputtering system. The results show that the film surface consists of strong and weak emission sites. We also obtain the field emission maps of micrometer order from strong and weak emission sites; these can help us understand the mechanism of field emission for improving the procedure for growing films.