Physics

Diamond-like carbon

Fabrication

Pathology

Electron

Nanotechnology

Organic chemistry

Amorphous carbon

Crystalline silicon

Crystallography

Metastability

Composite number

Field electron emission

Philosophy

Carbon fibers

Composite material

Chemistry

Thin film

Materials science

Alternative medicine

Stress (linguistics)

Amorphous silicon

Linguistics

Silicon

Amorphous solid

Quantum mechanics

Carbon film

Optoelectronics

Electric field

Medicine

Applied Physics Letters

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) films have always had high intrinsic stress due to their metastable structure and the fine balance between film density and bond stability. We show the effects of high intrinsic stress on the electron field emission performance, where a lower electric field for emission is recorded with increasing stress in the DLC films. In addition to examining “as deposited” films with different magnitudes of intrinsic stress, we subject the DLC films to external pressure by physically bending the a-C∕silicon substrates. The result is a phenomenon where electrons are “squeezed” out of the films, and can be applied to the fabrication of stress sensors.

Effects of applying stress on the electron field emission properties in amorphous carbon thin films