Increased field emission correlated with thermal conditioning of carbon nanosheets

Strong dependence of carbon nanosheets field emission on the effect of surface adsorbates is presented. Hydrogen, in particular, is the most prevalent surface contaminant that affects the local field and therefore controls the magnitude of electron emission. Conditioning of the carbon nanostructures either by vacuum firing or by resistive heating provides a progressive and dramatic improvement in the magnitude, stability and repeatability of the field emission. Based on the results, a model of site partitioning and localization of hydrogen in carbon nanosheet is proposed.