Field emission from multiwall carbon nanotubes on flexible paper substrates

Abstract

This paper presents a method for homogeneously coating paper substrates with acid-oxidised multiwall carbon nanotubes (o-MWNT) via a dip-coating technique. The field emission (FE) properties of these substrates were investigated as a function of the surface roughness (and thereby the morphology) of the underlying paper substrate. This technique brings about the possibility of directly coating o-MWNT in a controlled manner onto a plethora of pre-patterned substrates with morphologies chosen to maximise the enhancement factor (beta), over very large areas, using solution processing.