Emission Stability and Electron Energy Distribution of Carbide Cold Field Emitters and Tungsten Tips with Diamond-Like Coatings

The emission stability and energy distribution of tungsten carbide, HfC<100>, ZrC<100> and tungsten field emitters with diamond-like coatings have been investigated. These emitters can have higher emission stability than tungsten emitters under similar operations. It was found that electric-field induced atomic rearrangement can limit the emission stability of the carbide tips. In addition, multiple-peaked energy distributions were observed from instability induced emission sites. Initial results from our tungsten tips with diamond-like coating showed that they can have emission stability comparable to the carbide tips, and the electron energy distributions are similar to those of carbide emitters before instability.