title: Ultrananocrystalline diamond-decorated silicon nanowire field emitters.
abstract: Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) were uniformly decorated with ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) by a novel route using paraffin wax as the seeding source, which is more efficient in the creation of diamond nuclei than traditional methods. These one-dimensional ultrananocrystalline diamond-decorated SiNWs (UNCD/SiNWs) exhibit uniform diameters ranging from 100 to 200 nm with a bulbous catalytic tip of ∼250 nm in diameter and an UNCD grain size of ∼5 nm. UNCD/SiNW nanostructures demonstrated enhanced electron field emission (EFE) properties with a turn-on field of about 3.7 V/μm. Current densities around 2 mA/cm(2) were achieved at 25 V/μm, which is significantly enhanced as compared to bare SiNWs.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Functional Nanomaterials, University of Puerto Rico , San Juan, PR 00931, United States.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Palomino
authors.forename: Deepak
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Varshney
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Resto
authors.forename: Brad R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Weiner
authors.forename: Gerardo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Morell