Improved surface morphologies of printed carbon nanotubes by heat treatment and their field emission properties

Abstract This paper presents heating process for obtaining standing carbon nanotube emitters to improve field‐emission properties from the screen‐printed multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) films. In an atmosphere with optimum combination of nitrogen and air for heat treatment of CNT films, the CNT emitters can be made to protrude from the surface. This allows for high emission current and the formation of very uniform emission sites without special surface treatment. The morphological change of the CNT film by this technique has eliminated additional processing steps, such as surface treatment which may result in secondary contamination and damage to the film. Despite its simplicity the process provides high reproducibility in emission current density which makes the films suitable for practical applications.