Nanoscale Investigation on the Improvement of Electrical Properties of Boron-Doped Diamond Nanostructures for High-Performance Plasma Displays

Electrically conducting vertically aligned boron-doped diamond (BDD) nanostructures are fabricated from BDD films by reactive ion etching (RIE) using Au masks. Two different morphologies of BDD films, microcrystalline BDD (BMCD) and ultrananocrystalline BDD (BUNCD), are utilized to fabricate nanorods. The formation of nanorods is controlled via the size of Au particles on the surface of diamond films. High electrical conductivity of 7.9 x 10(3) S/cm at 573 K is achieved for the nanorods formed on BMCD films and using an Au mask with a large particle size (BMCDL). Conducting atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) studies show that high emission sites are observed in BMCDL nanorods. These highly conducting BMCDL nanorods are used as cathodes in plasma illumination (PI) devices, which exhibit improved characteristics such as a low breakdown voltage of 360 V and high plasma current density of 8.0 mA/cm(2) with high plasma lifetime stability of 51 min. The high aspect ratio of one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures and the high proportion of graphitic phases induced during the RIE process are the key factors for achieving excellent PI properties of these BMCDL nanorods. As a result, these nanorods make excellent candidates for future plasma displays (PD).