LAUSR

Abstract In this work, Field emission (FE) properties of mixed phase amorphous boron nitride (BN) nanofilms prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) were thoroughly investigated. The results showed that, for mixed amorphous BN nanofilms with a little cubic boron nitride (c-BN) and wurtzite boron nitride (w-BN) nanocrystalline, the turn on field of the nanofilms is as low as ∼0.5 V/μm and the FE current density can reach ∼12 mA/cm2 when the electrical field is only 0.75 V/μm. However, for primary cubic phase nanocrystalline BN films, the FE current density is only 500 μA/cm2; at as high as about 2.5 V/μm. Moreover, the field emission mechanism of the phase amorphous BN nanofilms was further discussed. Field emission enhancement for mixed phase amorphous BN may be originated from electron step-transport in different energy states and multi-channel electron transport in nanocrystalline interface.