TY - JOUR
T1 - Straight imaging and mechanism behind grain boundary electron emission in Pt-doped ultrananocrystalline diamond films
AU - Panda, Kalpataru
AU - Inami, Eiichi
AU - Sugimoto, Yoshiaki
AU - Sankaran, K. J.
AU - Lin, I. Nan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2017/1/1
Y1 - 2017/1/1
N2 - A detailed scanning tunneling microscopic (STM) investigation is carried out to directly image and understand the mechanism behind enhanced conductivity and electron field emission (EFE) properties for platinum (Pt) ion doped/post-annealed ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films. Straight imaging of conducting/non-conducting sites is mapped by dynamic scanning tunneling microscopy (D–STM). Energy dissipation mapping and the local current–voltage measurements illustrate that grain boundaries are the conducting/emitting sites. Further, this fact is supported by the high resolution current imaging tunneling spectroscopy (CITS). The formation of abundant conducting sp2 nanographitic phases along the diamond grain boundaries, confirmed from transmission electron microscopic examinations, is believed to be the genuine factor that helps for the easy transport of electrons and hence enhanced the conductivity/emission properties. The fabrication of these films with high conductivity and superior EFE properties is a direct and simple approach which opens up new prospects in flat panel displays and high brightness electron sources. Moreover, we expect the energy dissipation associated with assisted tunneling process of electrons from the tip of STM to sample surface, can be a very useful technique for imaging heterostructured semiconducting surfaces due to their electrical conductivity differences in nanometer scale, which can explain many physical and chemical properties.
AB - A detailed scanning tunneling microscopic (STM) investigation is carried out to directly image and understand the mechanism behind enhanced conductivity and electron field emission (EFE) properties for platinum (Pt) ion doped/post-annealed ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films. Straight imaging of conducting/non-conducting sites is mapped by dynamic scanning tunneling microscopy (D–STM). Energy dissipation mapping and the local current–voltage measurements illustrate that grain boundaries are the conducting/emitting sites. Further, this fact is supported by the high resolution current imaging tunneling spectroscopy (CITS). The formation of abundant conducting sp2 nanographitic phases along the diamond grain boundaries, confirmed from transmission electron microscopic examinations, is believed to be the genuine factor that helps for the easy transport of electrons and hence enhanced the conductivity/emission properties. The fabrication of these films with high conductivity and superior EFE properties is a direct and simple approach which opens up new prospects in flat panel displays and high brightness electron sources. Moreover, we expect the energy dissipation associated with assisted tunneling process of electrons from the tip of STM to sample surface, can be a very useful technique for imaging heterostructured semiconducting surfaces due to their electrical conductivity differences in nanometer scale, which can explain many physical and chemical properties.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84989327938
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84989327938&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.carbon.2016.09.062
DO - 10.1016/j.carbon.2016.09.062
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84989327938
SN - 0008-6223
VL - 111
SP - 8
EP - 17
JO - Carbon
JF - Carbon
ER -