Experimental evidence explaining the extremely low-threshold electronemission from diamond reported in 1996 has been obtained for the first time.Direct observation using combined ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy/fieldemission spectroscopy (UPS/FES) proved that the origin of field-inducedelectron emission from heavily nitrogen (N)-doped chemical vapour deposited(CVD) diamond was at conduction band minimum (CBM) utilising negative electronaffinity (NEA). The significance of the result is that not only does it provethe utilisation of NEA as the dominant factor for the extremely low-thresholdelectron emission from heavily N-doped CVD diamond, but also strongly impliesthat such low-threshold emission is possible from other types of diamond, andeven other materials having NEA surface. The low-threshold voltage, along withthe stable intensity and remarkably narrow energy width, suggests that thistype of electron emission can be applied to develop a next generation vacuumnano-electronic devices with long lifetime and high energy resolution.
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