CrossRef 27. Chen L, Ji Z, Mi Y, Ni H, Zhao H: Nonlinear characteristics of the Fowler–Nordheim plots of carbon nanotube field emission. Phys Scr 2010, 82:035602.CrossRef 28. Bai R, Kirkici H: Nonlinear Fowler-Nordheim plots of carbon nanotubes under vacuum and partial pressures. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Power Modulator and High Voltage Conference: June 3–7 2012; San Diego, CA, USA. Edited by: IEEE. Piscataway: IEEE; 2012:570–573.CrossRef 29. Chen LF, Song H, Cao

LZ, Jiang H, Li DB, Guo WG, Liu X, Zhao HF, Li ZM: Effect of interface barrier between carbon nanotube film and substrate on field emission. J Appl Phys 2009, 106:033703.CrossRef 30. Xu NS, Chen Y, Deng SZ, Chen J, Ma XC, Wang EG: Vacuum gap dependence of field electron emission properties of large area multi-walled buy BMS202 carbon nanotube films. J Phys D Appl Phys 2001,

34:1597–1601.CrossRef 31. Barbour JP, Dolan WW, Trolan JK, Martin EE, Dyke WP: Space-charge Poziotinib clinical trial effects in field emission. Phys Rev 1953,92(1):45–51. 32. Sato H, Haruki K, Watanabe M, Hata K, Saito Y: Effect of geometry of a vertically aligned carbon nanotube pillar array on its field-emission properties. Surf Interface Anal 2012, 44:776–779.CrossRef 33. Wu HC, Youh MJ, Lin WH, Tseng CL, Juan YM, Chuang MH, Li YY, Sakoda A: Fabrication of double-sided field-emission light source using a mixture of carbon nanotubes and phosphor sandwiched between

two electrode layers. Carbon 2012,50(13):4781–4786.CrossRef 34. Nilsson L, Groening O, Emmenegger C, Kuettel O, Schaller E: Scanning field emission from patterned carbon nanotube films. Appl Phys Lett 2000,76(15):2071–2073.CrossRef Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors’ contributions LAG selleck screening library performed most of the experimental work including the PECVD synthesis of the MWCNTs and FEE characterizations of the cold cathodes. VLB contributed to the characterizations work (particularly the SEM observations) and to the analysis of the FEE data. SA provided general feedback on the progress of the project and corrections to the manuscript. MAE supervised the entire MRIP process and suggested experiments while providing critical feedback all along the progress of the project. He also corrected the manuscript and finalized its drafting. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background Silicon (Si) is an important material used for optoelectronic device applications, such as sensors, photodetectors, and solar cells, due to its abundance in the earth’s crust, low-cost, and mature fabrication technique [1–4]. For these devices, minimizing the light reflection on the surface thereby increasing the light transmission into the device is the key to increase the device performance.