Low temperature growth of patterned ZnO nanowires and their field emission characteristics

Uniformly distributed and quasi-perpendicular patterned ZnO nanowires were synthesized on Ag electrodes coated Si substrate by thermal evaporation. Field emission (FE) measurements show that its turn-on field is 3.65V/mu m at current density of 10 mu A/cm2 and its the threshold field at current density of 1mA/cm2 is about 6.56 V/mu m at an emitter-anode gap of 400 mu m. and the fluctuation of FE current density is smaller than 10% for 3.5h at electric field of 6V/mu m. The low turn-on field and good stability indicates that it offers advantages as field emitter for much potential application.