Study on the Field Emission Performance of ZnO/Si-NPA

Keywords: Silicon Nanopore Array (Si-NPA); Zinc Sulfide (ZnS); Field Emission To investigate the effect of substrate morphology on the field emission performance of cold cathodes, zinc sulfide (ZnS)/Si-NPA was prepared via the chemical bath deposition (CBD) method using silicon nanopore arrays (Si-NPA) with either columnar or crater-like morphological features as substrates. By comparing the emission characteristics of the two samples, we examined how the morphology of the Si-NPA substrate influences its field emission performance. The results show that, compared to ZnO nanorod arrays, ZnO nanoneedle arrays exhibit a lower turn-on electric field and more...

　　Keywords: Silicon Nanopore Array (Si-NPA); Zinc Sulfide (ZnS); Field Emission

　　To investigate the influence of substrate morphology on the field emission performance of cold cathodes, zinc sulfide (ZnS)/Si-NPA films were prepared by chemical bath deposition (CBD) using silicon nanopore array (Si-NPA) substrates with either columnar or crater-like morphological features. By comparing the emission characteristics of these two samples, we examined how the substrate morphology of Si-NPA affects its field emission performance. The results show that, compared to the ZnO nanorod arrays, the ZnO nanoneedle arrays exhibit a lower turn-on electric field, a higher field enhancement factor, and a higher current emission density. Meanwhile, the ZnS/Si-NPA columnar arrays display a lower turn-on electric field and a higher emission current density than the crater-like arrays; the Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) plots of these two types of arrays reveal distinctly different characteristics. Simulation calculations performed using the finite element method to analyze the electric field distribution near the apex of the array elements in both the ZnS/Si-NPA columnar and crater-like arrays indicate that the apex of the ZnS/Si-NPA with columnar elements exhibits a stronger field enhancement effect. This finding confirms that substrate morphology is one of the key factors controlling the field emission performance of cold cathodes.

Key words: