Ultrashort single-wall carbon nanotubes reveal field-emission coulomb blockade and highest electron-source brightness.

We present here well-defined Coulomb staircases using an original field-emission experiment on several individual in situ-grown single-wall carbon nanotubes. A unique in situ process was applied nine times to progressively shorten one single-wall carbon nanotube down to ≃10  nm, which increased the oscillations periods from 5.5 to 80 V, the temperature for observable Coulomb staircase to 1100 K and the currents to 1.8  μA. This process led to the brightest electron source ever reported [9×1011  A/(str m2 V)].