Low-temperature Synthesis of Large-area Films of Molybdenum Trioxide Microbelts in Air and the Dependence of Their Field Emission Performance on Growth Conditions

A simple method is introduced for the preparation of large-area films of molybdenum trioxide (MoO3) micro-belts. It is found that such films can be grown on indium tin oxide (ITO) glasses or silicon substrates at low temperatures by thermal evaporation deposition in air without using catalyst. Field emission measurements show that the turn-on field of the MoO3 microbelts is as low as 2.2 V/μm required to obtain a current density of 10 μA/cm2. The combination of the simplicity of the growth method and the attractive field emission performance makes it a potential low-cost technique for the preparation of large-area field emission cold cathode material.