Zinc oxide nanowire based field emitters

✍ Scribed by Sivakumar Ramanathan; Yu-chun Chen; Yonhua Tzeng

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 665 KB
• Volume: 43
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1386-9477
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physe.2010.07.072

✦ Synopsis

We report the field emission properties of 50 nm diameter ZnO nanowires that were electrochemically self-assembled within pores of an anodic alumina film. Current versus voltage measurements of the Fowler-Nordheim tunneling current indicate that the turn-on field is 15 V mm À 1 and the field enhancement factor b calculated for two sets of samples turned out to be 670 and 1481, respectively (theoretical value for b in bulk ZnO is 205). The enhancement in b is most likely due to the large aspect ratio of the nanowires. Variation in the length of the nanowires causes the screening effect, which increases the turn-on field and reduces the emission current density. The current-voltage characteristics of the wires are non-linear and show a rectifying behavior.