Field emission study of strain controlled ZnO nanowire arrays via a hydrothermal technique

We report a novel approach to the rational fabrication of high quality strain controlled wurtzite ZnO nanowire arrays on conductive silicon and ITO substrates by a facile hydrothermal method. The quality of the ZnO nanowire arrays is dramatically improved by hanging the substrate above from the bottom of the Teflon lined autoclave. For comparison, the field emission device performance of the ZnO nanowire arrays grown under different experimental processes is investigated. The low turn-on voltage (1.9 V/μm) from field emission measurement was observed from ZnO nanowire arrays grown by substrate hanging growth procedure.