Back to the CRT? Carbon Nanotubes as electron guns

An area that has emerged within the last few years is that of using carbon nanotubes as very small tubes for transport. These materials were discovered by Iijima in 1991 and consist of arrangements of carbon hexagons making up tubes of tens of nanometre diameter with lengths in the micrometre range.

One application that has been investigated is to use these nanotubes as electron emitters [38, 39]. These carbon nanotube electron emitters work similarly to CRTs but their small size means that thinner more flexible display screens with higher energy efficiency could be made. These nanotubes have to align into patterns A 4-inch panel has been made to emit for 500 hours without significant degradation so although in its infancy the possibility of having flat screen technology using the firing of electron's at phosphors like in CRTs should not be written off just yet.