Field emission properties of ZnO nanosheets grown on a Si substrate

• Vertical ZnO nanosheets are synthesized on a Si substrate.
• ZnO nanosheet-based field emission devices were fabricated.
• The FE performance of a ZnO nanosheet device is attributable to the unique surface morphology of the nanosheets.

In this paper, vertical ZnO nanosheets are synthesized on a Si substrate using a simple solution-based method at room-temperature to realize a field emission device. The thin nanosheets that were perpendicular to the Si substrate surface were mutually interwoven into net-shaped and formed a continuous nanosheet film, with a unique surface morphology and a high surface-to-volume ratio. The length and diameter of the ZnO nanosheets was 1.8 μm and 21 nm, respectively. The turn-on electric fields and enhancement factor β of devices were measured as 5.4 V ∙ μm− 2 and 1014 V∙μm− 2, respectively.

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