Model for field emission from carbon nanotubes

Abstract

We model the field emission of a single walled carbon nanotube as that of Liu et al(2003). A triangle-shaped potential energy barrier is assumed at the interface between the nanotip of the nanotube and vacuum. The tunneling probability is determined using the Fowler-Nordheim expression and the energy band of the single-walled carbon nanotube. The current-voltage or I-V characteristic curves of several typical armchairs carbon nanotubes, (5,5), (10,10), (15,15) and (20,20), with zero energy gap at some specific transverse wave vectors are calculated. The carbon nanotube dispersion relation will be reviewed and the calculated IV curves are compared with experiments.