High-temperature stable field emission of B-doped SiC nanoneedle arrays

Abstract

Current emission stability is one of the key issues for field emitters for them to be practically applied as electron sources. In the present work, large-scale and well-aligned B-doped SiC nanoneedle arrays have been grown on 6H-SiC wafer substrates via pyrolysis of polymeric precursors. The measured field emission (FE) characteristics suggest that the turn-on fields of the as-synthesized SiC nanoneedle arrays are reduced from 1.92 to 0.98 V μm⁻¹ with temperature increasing from room temperature (RT) to 500 °C, suggesting their excellent FE performances. The slightly changed current fluctuations (only ∼1.3%) between RT and 200 °C confirm that the present SiC nanoarrays with B dopants could be highly stable field emitters to be used in service under harsh conditions of high temperatures.