Field electron emission characteristics and physical mechanism of individual single-layer graphene

Due to its difficulty, experimental measurement of field emission from a single-layer graphene has not been reported, although field emission from a two-dimensional (2D) regime has been an attractive topic. The open surface and sharp edge of graphene are beneficial for field electron emission. A 2D geometrical effect, such as massless Dirac fermion, can lead to new mechanisms in field emission. Here, we report our findings from in situ field electron emission characterization on an individual singe-layer graphene and the understanding of the related mechanism. The measurement of field emission from the edges was done using a microanode probe equipped in a scanning electron microscope. We show that repeatable stable field emission current can be obtained after a careful conditioning process. This enables us to examine experimentally the typical features of the field emission from a 2D regime. We plot current versus applied field data, respectively, in ln(I/E(3/2)) ∼ 1/E and ln(I/E(3)) ∼ 1/E(2) coordinates, which have recently been proposed for field emission from graphene in high- and low-field regimes. It is observed that the plots all exhibit an upward bending feature, revealing that the field emission processes undergo from a low- to high-field transition. We discuss with theoretical analysis the physical mechanism responsible for the new phenomena.