Indium-doped ZnO nanopencils: structural and field emission properties

This paper reports on the direct growth of In-doped ZnO nanopencils on Si substrate by facile thermal evaporation process using metallic zinc and In powders in the presence of oxygen. The as-grown nanostructures were examined in detail in terms of their morphological, structure and field emission properties. The morphological studies, carried out by FESEM, exhibited that the grown structures possess homogeneous morphologies with pointed tips similar to pencils. The typical tip diameters of as-synthesized nanopencils are in the range of similar to 13 +/- 3 nm which reflects that these nanopencils could be a promising candidate for field emission applications. The detailed structural properties revealed that the prepared nanopencils are well-crystalline and possessing wurtzite hexagonal phase. For application view point, the field emission properties of as-grown In-doped ZnO nanopencils were examined which exhibited a very low turn-on voltage of 1.3 kV.