Field Emission of Carbon Nanotubes

We have performed ab initio pseudopotential electronic structure calculations for various edge geometries of the (n,n) singlewall nanotube with or without applied fields. Among the systems studied, the one with the zigzag edge exposed by a slant cut is found to be the most favorable for the emission due to the existence of unpaired dangling bond states around the Fermi level. The next favorable geometry is the capped nanotube where $\pi$-bonding states localized at the cap and pointing to the tube axis direction occur at the Fermi level. A scaling rule of the induced field linear in the aspect ratio of the tube is also obtained.