摘要： Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is considered to be eminently suitable cold-cathode material. We found that exposure of CNT films to gas discharge breakdown generated in atmospheric argon gas causes significant morphology changes, which show many dispersed CNTs, on those surfaces. These indicate that the exposure of the CNT film to the gas discharge breakdown can be used as a method for improvement of the field emission property of the CNT film. In this study, field emission properties of the CNT film that was exposed to the gas discharge breakdown was investigated. Many crater-shaped holes whose circumferences were surrounded by many dispersed CNTs were found after the exposure of the CNT film to the discharge breakdown. We found that the CNT film after the exposure of the gas discharge breakdown gave better field emission properties than it before the exposure.