Growth and electron field emission of ZnO nanorods on diamond films

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods grown on chemical vapor deposited diamond films by thermal vapor transport method have been investigated. In the initial growth status, the semi-spherical ZnO nuclei were preferably deposited near the growth steps on the terraces and the boundaries of diamond grains. With increasing the growth time, the [0 0 0 1] orientated ZnO nanorods appeared and further covered the whole diamond film. It is found that the size of diamond grains would determine the diameter of ZnO nanorods. The electron field emission properties of the ZnO nanorods/diamond system have been significantly improved with respect to pure diamond film. The feature of the ZnO nanorods grown on diamond films played an important role in further enhancing the electron field emission performances.     

氧化锌纳米棒场发射性能研究

采用简单物理气相沉积法制备出取向和非取向的氧化锌纳米棒，他们的场致电子发射性能测量结果表明，ZnO纳米棒具有较好的场发射性能，但是高度取向的ZnO纳米棒阵列并不利于获得高的场致电子发射电流密度.这可能是由于高密度ZnO纳米棒之间具有较高的屏蔽效应，降低了ZnO纳米棒阵列的场放大因子，从而影响了其场发射性能.相反，非取向ZnO纳米棒由于相互之间的屏蔽效应比较弱，而且表面存在容易成为发射中心的微小突起，表现出较好的场发射效果.这些结果不仅有助于加深我们对准一维纳米材料场致电子发射性能的理解，也为未来场发射电子器件的实际应用提供了可靠的依据. 关键词： 氧化锌 场发射 非取向     

Characterization of GaN nanostructures by electron field and photo-field emission

The electron field and photo-field emission from GaN nanostructures has been analyzed in this review. In order to explain the obtained experimental results, a model was proposed taking into account the change in carrier concentration distribution in the main and the satellite valley during the emission process. The lowering of work function (due to the increased number of carriers in the satellite valley) can explain the decrease in the Fowler-Nordheim plot slope. It was shown that the energy difference between the main and satellite valley in GaN was decreased in the case of quantum confinement, thus increasing the probability of electron transition from Γ to X valley at same electric fields.Investigations of electron photo-field emission demonstrated that the Fowler–Nordheim plots of the emission current have different slopes for nonilluminated and illuminated devices. A model based on the electron emission from valleys having different specific electron affinities is proposed to explain the experimental results. In the absence of illumination the emission takes place only from the lower valley. Upon UV illumination and presence of a high electric field at the emitter tip, the upper valley of the conduction band appears to be occupied by electrons generated at the valence band.     

Electrodeposition of aligned ZnO sheet array on ITO substrate and their field emission characteristics

ZnO sheet array was fabricated by a simple electrodeposition method on the transparent ITO substrate at a temperature of about 60℃. The field emission properties of the ZnO sheet array were investigated. The fluctuation of the field emission current is less than 5% over several hours. The Fowler Nordheim curves with a roughly linear characteristic were obtained by analysing the current density and the intensity of the electrical field. The results prove that such a simple electrochemical method can potentially meet the demands on the production of cold cathodes for field emission display.[第一段]     

不同基底的GaN纳米薄膜制备及其场发射增强研究

采用脉冲激光沉积 (PLD) 方法在Si及SiC基底上制备了相同厚度的GaN纳米薄膜并对其进行了微结构表征及场发射性能测试分析. 结果表明: 基底对于GaN薄膜微结构及场发射性能具有显著的影响. 在SiC基底上所制备的GaN纳米薄膜相对于Si基底上的GaN纳米薄膜, 其场发射性能得到显著提升, 其场发射电流可以数量级增大. 场发射显著增强应源于纳米晶微结构及取向极化诱导增强效应. 本研究结果表明, 要获得优异性能场发射薄膜, 合适基底及薄膜晶体微结构需要重点考虑. 关键词： 基底 GaN 纳米薄膜 场发射     

Synthesis and efficient field emission of ZnO nanoinjectors

ZnO nanoinjectors were synthesized on Au-coated Si substrate by direct thermal evaporation of zinc powder at a low temperature of 600 °C and atmospheric pressure. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction were applied to study the structural characteristics of the sample. The result indicated that the nanoinjector sample consisted of single-crystalline wurtzite structures which were preferentially oriented in the 0 0 1 direction. The field emission of the sample started at a turn-on field of 1.5 V/μm at a current density of 1 μA/cm², while the emission current density reached about 1 mA/cm² at an applied field of 5.0 V/μm.     

Residual gas properties in a field emission device with ZnO emitters

In this paper, a vacuum system is employed to compare the emission stabilities of the same ZnO cathode in a sealed field emission （FE） device and under ultrahigh vacuum （UHV） conditions. It is observed that the emission current is more stable under the UHV level than in the device. When all conditions except the ambient gases are kept unchanged, the emission current degradation is mainly caused by the residual gases in the sealed device. The quadrupole mass spectrometer （QMS） equipped on the vacuum system is used to investigate the residual gas components. Based on the obtained QMS data, the following conclusions can be drawn： the residual gases in ZnO-FE devices are H2, CH4, CO, Ar, and CO2. These residual gases can change the work function at the surface through adsorption or ion bombardment, thereby degrading the emission current of the cathode.     

爆炸电子发射初期阴极表面电场的研究

为了研究二极管爆炸电子发射初始阶段阴极表面复杂的物理现象及规律, 建立了由场致电子发射阴极构成的一维平板真空二极管物理模型,通过自行编程数值求解泊松方程, 考虑了发射出的电子对阴极表面电场的非线性影响,自洽模拟得到了阴极表面电场随时间的变化情况. 模拟结果表明,爆炸电子发射初期,阴极表面电场随时间的增加而呈现出不断振荡的规律, 且振荡幅度越来越小,最终到达一个稳态的值,二极管两极板之间的外加电场越大, 阴极表面稳态电场的绝对值越大;电场增强系数越大,阴极表面稳态电场的绝对值越大. 在整个时间演变过程中,阴极表面的实际电场强度决定着阴极发射的电流密度大小, 反过来阴极发射的电流密度又会影响到阴极表面的电场.     

The field emission of indium-doped ZnO films fabricated by room temperature DC magnetron sputtering

Indium doped ZnO film was fabricated at room temperature by co-sputtering a zinc target and an indium plate under the flow of oxygen and argon. The film was then characterized and the field emission of the film was studied. The indium composition x in the film (Zn_1−xIn_xO) is 5%. The film is hexagonal without any secondary phases or precipitates. The film has two major emission peaks, one related to the band edge emission and another possibly related to the electron acceptor transition. The possible acceptor is nitrogen occupying oxygen site in ZnO. The film is n-type and very resistive. The turn on field of the film at an emission current density of 10 μA/cm² is 17.5 V/μm. The relatively weak field emission property is due to the unintentional incorporation of acceptors such as substitutional nitrogen and oxygen vacancies, which increase the work function of ZnO by reducing the electron density and lowering the Fermi level position of the ZnO:In film.     

氧化锌纳米线的紫外光耦合增强场电子发射特性

本文采用热化学气相沉积方法制备氧化锌纳米线阵列, 研究氧化锌纳米线阵列在紫外光辐照下的场电子发射特性. 实验结果表明, 在紫外光辐照下, 氧化锌纳米线场发射开启电压降低, 发射电流明显增大. 机理分析认为, 氧化锌纳米线紫外光增强的场发射源自场电子发射与半导体耦合作用, 紫外光激发价带电子跃迁到导带和缺陷能级使发射电子数量增加, 同时, 光生电子发射降低了发射材料表面的有效功函数, 从而显著增强场电子发射性能. 氧化锌纳米线具有紫外光耦合增强场电子发射特性, 在光传感、冷阴极平板显示和场发射电子源等方面具有潜在的应用价值.     

后栅结构四针状纳米ZnO场致发射显示器的研制

为了解决二极结构FED驱动电压高的问题,设计制作了后栅式三极结构纳米ZnO场致发射显示器,进行了场致发射实验,验证这种结构的可行性。采用丝网印刷厚膜技术实现后栅极结构FED的制作,工艺简单,实现了较低电压的调制。对影响场致发射性能的栅极电压、阳极电压进行了分析讨论。将阴栅极板和荧光屏封装成5英寸三极结构的场致发射显示器,实现了稳定的场致电子发光显示。     

Mechanism of field electron emission from carbon nanotubes

Field electron emission (FE) is a quantum tunneling process in which electrons are injected from materials (usually metals) into a vacuum under the influence of an applied electric field. In order to obtain usable electron current, the conventional way is to increase the local field at the surface of an emitter. For a plane metal emitter with a typical work function of 5 eV, an applied field of over 1 000 V/μm is needed to obtain a significant current. The high working field (and/or the voltage between the electrodes) has been the bottleneck for many applications of the FE technique. Since the 1960s, enormous effort has been devoted to reduce the working macroscopic field (voltage). A widely adopted idea is to sharpen the emitters to get a large surface field enhancement. The materials of emitters should have good electronic conductivity, high melting points, good chemical inertness, and high mechanical stiffness. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are built with such needed properties. As a quasi-one-dimensional material, the CNT is expected to have a large surface field enhancement factor. The experiments have proved the excellent FE performance of CNTs. The turn-on field (the macroscopic field for obtaining a density of 10 μA/cm²) of CNT based emitters can be as low as 1 V/μm. However, this turn-on field is too good to be explained by conventional theory. There are other observations, such as the non-linear Fowler-Nordheim plot and multi-peaks field emission energy distribution spectra, indicating that the field enhancement is not the only story in the FE of CNTs. Since the discovery of CNTs, people have employed more serious quantum mechanical methods, including the electronic band theory, tight-binding theory, scattering theory and density function theory, to investigate FE of CNTs. A few theoretical models have been developed at the same time. The multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) should be assembled with a sharp metal needle of nano-scale radius, for which the FE mechanism is more or less clear. Although MWCNTs are more common in present FE applications, the single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are more interesting in the theoretical point of view since the SWCNTs have unique atomic structures and electronic properties. It would be very interesting if people can predict the behavior of the well-defined SWCNTs quantitatively (for MWCNTs, this is currently impossible). The FE as a tunneling process is sensitive to the apex-vacuum potential barrier of CNTs. On the other hand, the barrier could be significantly altered by the redistribution of excessive charges in the micrometer long SWCNTs, which have only one layer of carbon atoms. Therefore, the conventional theories based upon the hypothesis of fixed potential (work function) would not be valid in this quasi-one-dimensional system. In this review, we shall focus on the mechanism that would be responsible for the superior field emission characteristics of CNTs. We shall introduce a multi-scale simulation algorithm that deals with the entire carbon nanotube as well as the substrate as a whole. The simulation for (5, 5) capped SWCNTs with lengths in the order of micrometers is given as an example. The results show that the field dependence of the apex-vacuum electron potential barrier of a long carbon nanotube is a more pronounced effect, besides the local field enhancement phenomenon.     

Morphology control and electron field emission properties of high-ordered Si nanoarrays fabricated by modified nanosphere lithography

High-ordered silicon nanoarrays were prepared using direct nanosphere lithography combined with thermal oxidation. Atomic force microscope (AFM) images of the silicon arrays show that the patterns of polystyrene (PS) template are well transferred to the silicon surface. The size and morphology of the nanoarrays can be controlled effectively by varying the plasma-therm reactive ion etching (RIE) or thermal oxidation parameters. The field emission studies revealed that the typical turn-on field was about 7-8 V/μm with emission current reached 1 μA/cm². It is also found that the field emission current is highly dependent on the morphology of these Si nanoarrays.     

N-M(Cd,Mg)共掺闭口氧化锌纳米管场发射第一性原理研究

采用基于密度泛函理论的第一性原理计算方法, 分别研究了N掺杂和N-M(Cd, Mg)共掺(9, 0)型闭口氧化锌纳米管(ZnONT)的几何结构和场发射性能.结果表明: N原子能够提高体系帽端结构的稳定性; 随外加电场增强, 体系的态密度向低能方向移动, 最高占据分子轨道(HOMO)-最低未占据分子轨道(LUMO)能隙及有效功函数变小, 电荷向帽端聚集程度愈高. 体系态密度/局域态密度, HOMO/LUMO, 能隙及Mulliken电荷分析一致表明, N-Cd共掺可提高ZnONT的场发射性能, N-Mg共掺反而抑制其电子发射. 关键词： 第一性原理 ZnO纳米管 场发射 共掺杂     

Enhanced blue emission of ZnO films deposited on AlN substrates

Taking into account the individual excellent optical properties of ZnO and AlN, the combination of ZnO with AlN may give the enhanced performances. Based on similar lattice constants between ZnO and AlN, considering that AlN is a promising high power integrated circuit substrate material, ZnO films are deposited on AlN substrates using magnetron sputtering. We find that AlN substrate shows an excellent transparency with an average transmittance of about 80%. As ZnO films are deposited on AlN substrate, average transmittance still maintain above 80% except for the UV absorption edge shifted to the longer wavelength. In addition, AlN substrate shows two emission peaks at 420 and 468 nm ascribed to Al vacancies with different charge states. As ZnO films are deposited on AlN substrates in pure Ar gas, the intensity of both peaks attain the maximum. After introducing O₂ gas, they conversely decreases and attains the minimum. PL emissions increase again as the sample is annealed in vacuum. Excellent blue emissions are obtained due to the synergistic effect between ZnO and AlN. This work may help the development of the practical optoelectronic devices based on ZnO and AlN materials.     

Formation of aligned ZnO nanorods on self-grown ZnO template and its enhanced field emission characteristics

We report a novel method for producing aligned ZnO nanorods (ANR) on self-grown ZnO template in a single step process involving growth of ZnO by vapor transport, followed by quenching of growing ZnO flux in liquid nitrogen. In the present study Zn powder turns into ZnO sheet under oxygen flow at ∼900 °C and bottom surface of the sheet acts as template for the growth of ANR. It is revealed from XRD and EDAX analysis that the bottom of the sheet is Zn rich region and acts as self catalyst for the growth of ANR. The grown nanorods have length up to several tens of micrometers with diameters ranging from ∼100 to 150 nm. Microstructural analysis of ANR indicates the fractal like configuration. The field emission properties have been investigated for ANR with fractal geometry using the ANR on self-grown ZnO template as a cathode directly. The turn-on electric field required to draw current density of ∼1.0 μA/cm² has been found to be ∼0.98 V/μm. The field enhancement factor based on Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) plot was found to be ∼7815 for ANR. The fractal geometry of ANR has been shown to be advantageous for achieving improved field emission features. The present investigations of synthesis involving formation of ANR over self-grown ZnO template, together with fractal configuration of the as-synthesized ANR, are first of their type.     

ZnO nanorod arrays with tunable size and field emission properties on an ITO substrate achieved by an electrodeposition method

In the present work,vertically aligned ZnO nanorod arrays with tunable size are successfully synthesized on nonseeded ITO glass substrates by a simple electrodeposition method.The effect of growth conditions on the phase,morphology,and orientation of the products are studied in detail by X-ray diffraction(XRD),scanning electron microscopy(SEM),and transmission electron microscopy(TEM).It is observed that the as-prepared nanostructures exhibit a preferred orientation along c axis,and the size and density of the ZnO nanorod can be controlled by changing the concentration of ZnCl2.Field emission properties of the as-synthesized samples with different diameters are also studied,and the results show that the nanorod arrays with a smaller diameter and appropriate rod density exhibit better emission properties.The ZnO nanorod arrays show a potential application in field emitters.     

Synthesis of ZnO films with a special texture and enhanced field emission properties

ZnO films with special textures are fabricated on Mo-coated Al₂O₃ ceramic substrates by the catalyst-free electron beam evaporation method, and the as-deposited films are treated by hydrogen plasma. It is found that the surface morphologies of the films are changed significantly after hydrogen plasma treatment and that the films consist of vertically standing and intersecting nanosheets. A lower turn-on field of 1.2 V/μm and an enhanced current density ～0.11 mA/cm² at 2.47 V/μm are achieved. The low threshold field and the high emission current density are attributed primarily to the unique shape and smaller resistivity of the ZnO nanosheet films.     

薄膜场发射开启电场的小波神经网络预测模型研究

关键词：     

Fabrication of transparent and flexible carbon‐doped ZnO field emission display on plastic substrate

Transparent and flexible carbon doped ZnO (C:ZnO) field emission device was successfully fabricated on an arylite substrate. Excellent adhesion of deposited C:ZnO on the flexible substrate was achieved with low sputtering power and Ar flow rate. In the fabricated device, nanostructured C:ZnO and as‐deposited thin films were used as field emitter and phosphor screen, respectively. The C:ZnO thin film showed a transparency of about 80% at 550 nm wavelength and average sheet resistance of 1.96 kΩ/□. The C:ZnO phosphor screen emitted red light during the field emission measurement, correlating the dominant cathodoluminescence peak at 646 nm. Thus, a promising transparent and flexible field emission display can be realized with C:ZnO based material.

Transparent and flexible C:ZnO film phosphor screen (anode) and nanocone emitters (cathode) for field emission device.