Enhanced field emission of tetrapod zinc oxide in methane

Author

Wang, Jinchan ; Zhang, Xiaobing ; Lei, Wei ; Fuming Mao ; Yunkang Cui ; Mei Xiao

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electron. Sci. & Eng., Southeast Univ., Nanjing, China

fYear

2009

fDate

28-30 April 2009

Firstpage

273

Lastpage

274

Abstract

Tetrapod zinc oxide (T-ZnO), being a kind of nano-scale material, has a large specific surface area and high surface binding energy, which will make it sensitive to ambient gases; hence, the field emission (FE) properties of this ZnO nanomaterial will be influenced by gas adsorption. The effect of methane on the field emission of T-ZnO emitters was investigated. It was found that CH₄ enhanced the field emission substantially. By curve fitting we are able to describe the experimental results adequately as a function of the methane pressure. The increase of the field emission is caused by a lower work function of the ZnO-emitters.

Keywords

II-VI semiconductors; binding energy; curve fitting; field emission; nanostructured materials; organic compounds; wide band gap semiconductors; work function; zinc compounds; ZnO; curve fitting; field emission; gas adsorption; methane pressure; nanoscale material; surface binding energy; tetrapod zinc oxide; work function; Anodes; Cathodes; Conducting materials; Electron emission; Gases; Nanostructured materials; Power engineering and energy; Semiconductor materials; Vacuum systems; Zinc oxide; field emission; tetrapod ZnO; work function;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Vacuum Electronics Conference, 2009. IVEC '09. IEEE International

Conference_Location

Rome

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-3500-5

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-3501-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IVELEC.2009.5193536

Filename

5193536