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Field electron emission model of hydrogen-terminated n-type diamond was discussed. Ultra-violet photoelectron spectroscopy characterizations indicated that the electron affinity was -0.7 eV and an internal barrier of about 3.5 eV existed on the surface. Field electron emission properties depended on anode-diamond distances. Schottky barrier lowering model suggested that this internal barrier was lowered by the electric field (5.4x106 V/cm) applied onto the negative electron affinity surface of the H-terminated n-type diamond.

In this paper, we measured the field emission properties of reconstructed P-doped diamond under various anode-diamond distances and compared with the oxidized surface. Voltage drops in the vacuum was estimated to be 4.95 and 26.6 V/μm for the reconstructed and the oxidized, respectively. Moreover, we calculated the barrier height ratio between each surface. Our data indicates the changes in electron affinity strongly affect on the field emission properties.

Electric field of less than 5 V/μm is enough to extract electrons from diamond, whereas field of one to two orders of magnitude higher is needed to extract electrons from metal emitter tips. Despite such low-threshold field, the difficulty in clarification of electron emission mechanism is the factor preventing diamond from being used in a practical use. Quite a few numbers of possible mechanisms were proposed to better understand the origin and properties of the observed emission. Most of these mechanisms were, however, based on the conventional I (Emission current)-V (Anode voltage) characteristics. Energy distribution of the field-emitted electrons is essential in direct clarification of the mechanism. In this study, combined XPS/UPS/FES system was used to characterize the electron emission mechanism of doped chemical vapor deposited (CVD) diamond. The results indicated successful observation of the origin of field-emitted electrons from doped CVD diamond comparison with natural diamond, used as a reference.

Diamond has various advantages as an electron emitter in addition to the low-threshold voltage, negative electron affinity (NEA), high thermal conductivity, high mechanical hardness, and high chemical stability. The difficulty in clarification of electron emission mechanism is preventing diamond from being used in the practical use. It is extremely difficult to identify the surface potential of the emitting diamond from conventional Emission current (I)- Anode voltage (V) characteristics. If one could measure the potential of the emitting surface, the band diagram of emitting diamond can be completed. The combined spectroscopy of XPS/UPS/FES specially built for this study, is one of the most powerful tool, which could identify the potential of the emitting surface. In this study, we have succeeded in observing the origin of field-emitted electrons using our combined XPS/UPS/FES system.

An n-type semiconducting diamond film has been synthesized by the hot filament CVD method using diphosphorus pentaoxide as the doping source. The obtained film was identified as polycrystalline diamond containing few sp2 components by means of several methods including Raman spectroscopy. From measurements of the Hall effect and the Seebeck effect, the film was found to be an n-type semiconductor.

The kinetic energy and spatial distribution of field electron emission from nitrogen (urea) doped, chemical vapor deposited (CVD) diamond films have been examined with simultaneous field emission and photoemission. A linear Fowler-Nordheim characteristic was measured over a wide range of currents. The field emission electrons originate from distinct areas of the flat sample. The dominant origin of field emission is due to electrons tunneling from near the valence band maximum. A time dependent fluctuation in the kinetic energy and spatial distribution of the emission is observed when the applied electric field (and hence emission current density) is increased well above the emission threshold.