Image potential of single-wall carbon nanotubes in the field emission condition

TL;DR

This study calculates the image potentials of single-wall carbon nanotubes under field emission conditions using quantum chemistry, revealing they resemble ideal metal spheres and significantly influence emission current.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum chemistry-based method to accurately compute image potentials of carbon nanotubes, showing their insensitivity to structure and applied field.

Findings

Image potentials resemble those of ideal metal spheres.

Including image potential increases emission current by an order.

Image potential is insensitive to tube structure and applied field.

Abstract

We calculated the image potentials of single-walled carbon nanotubes of various structures in the condition of field emission with a quantum chemistry method. The image potential of the single-walled carbon nanotubes can be well fitted with the image potential of an ideal metal sphere in a size comparable to an atom. The image potential is not sensitive to both the applied field and the structure of the tube. When the image potential is included, the emission current would be one order larger.