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Content archived on 2024-04-30

Doping of amorphous carbon

Objective



Research objectives and content:
The objective of the project is to acquire a fundamental understanding of the doping mechanism of amorphous carbon. Diamondlike amorphous carbon (DLC) with more than 70% sp3 bonds (as in diamond) is a semiconductor which has very interesting properties for the development of a new type of flat panel display: the field emission display (FED). This type of display requires materials which emit electrons at very low electric fields, but are not easily poisoned, like caesium is. DLC is such a material and it has the advantage over diamond that it can be produced at room temperature. It is found that electron emission is greatly increased by the addition of dopant elements like nitrogen. In the project, DLC will be deposited by a filtered cathodic vacuum arc system which allows dopants to be introduced as a gas during deposition. The electronic properties of the nitrogen doped DLC will be optimised for electron emission. The mechanisms by which nitrogen dopes and increases the emission will be studied by a variety of techniques such as field emission, electron spin resonance,
photoconductivity, photoluminescence and electron energy loss spectroscopy. These experiments will define the chemical bonding states of the nitrogen and define the role of defects in the doping process
Training content (objective, benefit and expected impact)
The project will require a knowledge of a wide range of principles of the behaviour of semiconductors. It will also require the ability to use a wide range of deposition, measurement and analytic techniques. These techniques are of general importance as they are widely used in semiconductor industry.
Links with industry / industrial relevance (22)
The overall project on field emission is partly sponsored by Motorola Inc. ** Read the Research Training Grants Information Package before completing ***

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

RGI - Research grants (individual fellowships)

Coordinator

University of Cambridge
EU contribution
No data
Address
Trumpington Street
CB2 1PZ Cambridge
United Kingdom
Total cost
No data

Participants (1)