Effect of CsI nanoparticle coating on field emission properties from a composite of CNT and ZnO nanotetrapods

In this study, we fabricated a cathode using screen printing method with carbon nanotubes and ZnO nanotetrapods as cathode emission materials and CsI nanoparticles as coating materials. After several comparative experiments, we find that 3g CsI dispersed into an organic paste which is composed of 20ml terpineol and 1g ethyl cellulose has significant results to improve the performance of the field emission. The turn-on voltage of the composite cathode decreased from 2.7 V/μm to 2.2 V/μm for the CsI coated cathode with above CsI concentration. Fig.1 gives the curve of I-E characteristics with cathode coated by CsI and not be coated respectively.