Enhanced field emission of p-type 3C-SiC nanowires with B dopants and sharp corners

Abstract

Field emission with a low turn-on field and high stability is very important and highly desired for the practical application of nanostructures in electron emitters. In the present study, we report the growth of p-type 3C-SiC nanowires with B dopants and sharp corners created via the catalyst-assisted pyrolysis of a polymeric precursor. The morphologies, structures and field emission (FE) properties of the resultant SiC nanowires were investigated. FE measurements suggest that the B-doped SiC nanowires have excellent FE performance with a low turn-on field of 1.35 V μm⁻¹ and a high field enhancement factor of ∼4895. More importantly, the current emission fluctuation of B-doped nanowires with an applied field of 1.88 V μm⁻¹ at 200 °C could be improved to ∼11% from ∼22% of the undoped counterparts, suggesting that the high-temperature FE stability of SiC nanowires could be significantly enhanced by the B dopants. The excellent FE performances could be attributed to the special p-type triangular prism-like nanostructures with B dopants and numerous sharp corners on the prism edges, which could reduce the effective work function and remarkably increase the emission site density.