A nano-graphite cold cathode for an energy-efficient cathodoluminescent light source

Abstract

The development of new types of light sources is necessary in order to meet the growing demands of consumers and to ensure an efficient use of energy. The cathodoluminescence process is still under-exploited for light generation because of the lack of cathodes suitable for the energy-efficient production of electron beams and appropriate phosphor materials. In this paper we propose a nano-graphite film material as a highly efficient cold cathode, which is able to produce high intensity electron beams without energy consumption. The nano-graphite film material was produced by using chemical vapor deposition techniques. Prototypes of cathodoluminescent lamp devices with a construction optimized for the usage of nano-graphite cold cathodes were developed, manufactured and tested. The results indicate prospective advantages of this type of lamp and the possibility to provide advanced power efficiency as well as enhanced spectral and other characteristics.

Keywords: cathodoluminescence; electron field emission; light source; nano-graphite; vacuum electronics

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Introduction

The fundamental importance of light in our lives cannot be overstated. The sun is the only natural source of light emission with appropriate intensity. This is the driving force for the elaboration of artificial light sources. The demand on artificial lighting increases constantly and will continue to increase in the future. The conversion of electric energy is the most practical way for light generation and it is currently used in incandescent bulbs, gas discharge, and electroluminescent lamps of various designs, shapes, input and output power. Additionally, a photoluminescent process is used to convert blue or ultraviolet radiation, produced by gas discharge or by electroluminescence, to white light. Unfortunately, because of the fundamental principles of nature, the energy efficient generation of light requires the usage of extremely toxic materials (mercury, heavy metals and others). This leads to the necessity of expensive and laborious efforts to dispose of the mercury-based fluorescent devices and the semiconductor-based light emitting diode (LED) lamps (see, e.g., [1,2]). Moreover, the spectral characteristics of the light produced by these fluorescent and LED lamps are often not perceived as pleasing in contrast to incandescent lamps. But incandescent bulbs convert only 5% of the consumed energy into light and are thus considered as ineffective. The other 95% of the energy are transformed into heat, which cannot be considered as waste in many countries where electricity is used for house heating practically every day. In the “energy efficient” fluorescent and LED lamps the energy conversion ratio is about 10%, so that there is a decrease of energy loss on heating only from 95 to 90%. At the same time, production costs for these lamps, i.e. consumption and waste of energy at the production plant, are many times higher compared to the production costs of incandescent bulbs.

Thus, the development of new types of light sources is necessary to provide better energy efficiency, spectral characteristics, and other properties desired by the consumer. The process of cathodoluminescence (CL), which is potentially able to provide a conversion of up to 35% [3] (or more for nanostructured phosphors [4]) of the energy of the excited electron into radiation, is therefore attractive for light generation [5]. The most suitable source of electrons is the field emission (FE) cathode [5], allowing to exploit the FE effect for the creation of CL light emitting lamps. Cathodes of this type (also called "cold cathodes") are capable of generating intense electron beams virtually without any energy consumption because of the quantum tunneling nature of the FE effect [6]. Individual field emitters are required to have a needle- or blade-shape with a high aspect ratio in order to provide a sufficient intensity of the electric field at moderate voltages. Multi-emitter cathodes are necessary to achieve a reasonable total intensity of electron beams, because the current from a single emitter is limited due to its small emission surface area. To prevent field shielding the individual emitters, composing flat multi-emitter FE cathodes, must be separated from each other by a distance a few times larger than the height of the emitters [7,8]. To survive under the action of the extremely strong electric field, FE cathodes must be made from rather strong materials – hard metals, or selected semiconductors. From this point of view graphite-like materials, having the strongest interatomic interaction, are attractive for the FE cathode production. In this paper we describe the production technique and the electron field emission (FE) characteristics of nano-graphite films (NGF) and prototypes of CL lamps with NGF cold cathodes.

Results and Discussion: http://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjnano/single/articleFullText.htm?publicId=2190-4286-4-58