Synthesis and field emission property of VO2 nanorods with a body-centered-cubic structure

Films consisting of vertically aligned VO2 nanorods were prepared on planar silicon substrate by thermally heating a sheet of vanadium in a rough vacuum. These nanorods were found to be of a body-centered-cubic (BCC) structure with a lattice constant of 0.94 nm, which was not observed before for VO2. Due to their sharp tip of the nanometer scale, the BCC VO2 nanorods exhibited excellent field emission properties, which make them possible candidate materials for applications in field emission devices.