Stable Field Emission from Vertically Oriented SiC Nanoarrays

Nanomaterials

Jiuzhou Zhao¹  Shenghan Zhou¹  Chi Li¹  Zhenjun Li¹  Guanjiang Liu¹  Ke Chen¹  Xinchuan Liu¹  Mattew Thomas Cole²  Jianfeng Xiao³  Qing Dai³ 

[1] CAS Key Laboratory of Nanophotonic Materials and Devices, CAS Key Laboratory of Standardization and Measurement for Nanotechnology, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing 100190, China;Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK;Henan Institute of Advanced Technology, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China;

关键词: silicon carbide;    one-dimensional nanomaterials;    nanoarrays;    field emission;   

DOI  :  10.3390/nano11113025

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Silicon carbide (SiC) nanostructure is a type of promising field emitter due to high breakdown field strength, high thermal conductivity, low electron affinity, and high electron mobility. However, the fabrication of the SiC nanotips array is difficult due to its chemical inertness. Here we report a simple, industry-familiar reactive ion etching to fabricate well-aligned, vertically orientated SiC nanoarrays on 4H-SiC wafers. The as-synthesized nanoarrays had tapered base angles >60°, and were vertically oriented with a high packing density >10⁷ mm⁻² and high-aspect ratios of approximately 35. As a result of its high geometry uniformity—5% length variation and 10% diameter variation, the field emitter array showed typical turn-on fields of 4.3 V μm⁻¹ and a high field-enhancement factor of ~1260. The 8 h current emission stability displayed a mean current fluctuation of 1.9 ± 1%, revealing excellent current emission stability. The as-synthesized emitters demonstrate competitive emission performance that highlights their potential in a variety of vacuum electronics applications. This study provides a new route to realizing scalable field electron emitter production.

【 授权许可】

Unknown