title: Field emission enhancement of Au-Si nano-particle-decorated silicon nanowires.
abstract: Au-Si nano-particle-decorated silicon nanowire arrays have been fabricated by Au film deposition on silicon nanowire array substrates and then post-thermal annealing under hydrogen atmosphere. Field emission measurements illustrated that the turn-on fields of the non-annealed Au-coated SiNWs were 6.02 to 7.51 V/μm, higher than that of the as-grown silicon nanowires, which is about 5.01 V/μm. Meanwhile, after being annealed above 650°C, Au-Si nano-particles were synthesized on the top surface of the silicon nanowire arrays and the one-dimensional Au-Si nano-particle-decorated SiNWs had a much lower turn-on field, 1.95 V/μm. The results demonstrated that annealed composite silicon nanowire array-based electron field emitters may have great advantages over many other emitters.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Beam Technology and Material Modification of Ministry of Education, College of Nuclear Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P, R, China. gacheng@bnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Guo-An
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Rui-Ting
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Dan-Dan
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Shao-Long
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Jian-Hua
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Deng