title: Tip cooling effect and failure mechanism of field-emitting carbon nanotubes.
abstract: The cooling effect accompanying field electron emission has been considered for a single carbon nanotube (CNT) used as a field emission (FE) electron source. An improved model for the failure mechanism of field emitting CNTs has been proposed and validated. Our model predicts a maximum temperature (T-max) located at an interior point rather than the tip of the CNTs, and the failure of the CNT emitters tends to take place at the T-max point, inducing a segment by segment breakdown process. A combination of Joule heating and electrostatic force effect is proposed responsible for initiating the failure of the field emitting CNT and validated by in situ FE observation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Kaili
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Lian-Mao
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Shoushan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fan
mesh_terms: D004868:Equipment Failure; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon