The effects of paste materials on field emission properties in a carbon nanotube(CNT) cathode were investigated for high-efficient field emission displays. The major components in CNT paste for screen printing were a metallic Ag-paste, a dielectric glass-frit and CNT ink. The emission current from the cathode by an electron tunneling effect increased with an increase in the dielectric material fraction in the CNT paste, which is related to an increase of field enhancement factor in Fowler-Nordheim equation. The surface treatment used, after soft baking of the screen-printed CNT films, greatly affected the decrease in the turn-on field in CNT cathode and the uniformity of emission sites over the entire CNT film area.