Carbon nanotube field emission display has been regarded as one of the most promising flat panel displays due to its unique advantages. The morphology of the cathode material composed of the nanotubes will directly affect the field emission display properties. In this paper, we used single-walled carbon nanotubes synthesized by arc discharge method as the cathode material. This material was printed onto the conducting surface of the cathode plate using a screen-printing process. We studied the field emission properties of the cathode and the brightness of the green phosphor also screen printed on the anode. The display unit exhibited good field emission properties. The single-walled nanotube cathode was shown to have low turn-on voltage and high field emission current density.