In the conventional carbon nanotube backlight units (CNT-BLUs), light passes through the phosphor-coated anode glass plate, which thus faces closely the thin film transistor (TFT) backplate of a liquid crystal display panel. This configuration makes heat dissipation structurally difficult because light emission and heat generation occur simultaneously at the anode. We propose a novel configuration of a CNT-BLU where the cathode rather than the anode faces the TFT backplate by turning it upside down. In this design, light passes through the transparent cathode glass plate while heating occurs at the anode. We demonstrated a novel design of CNT-BLU by fabricating transparent single-walled CNT field emitters on the cathode and by coating a reflecting metal layer on the anode. This study hopefully provides a clue to solve the anode-heating problem which would be inevitably confronted for high-luminance and large-area CNT-BLUs. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.