Field emission from oriented tin oxide rods

Tin oxide (SnO2) films were grown on silicon substrates by a wet chemical route. It was found from scanning electron microscopy investigations that oriented SnO2 rods normal to the substrates were obtained. Field emission studies were carried out in diode configuration in an all metal ultra high vacuum chamber at a base pressure ∼ 1.33 × 10− 8 mbar. The ‘onset’ field required to draw 0.1 μA/cm2 current density from the emitter cathode was found to be ∼ 3.4 V/μm for SnO2 rods. The field emission current and applied field follows the Folwer–Nordheim relationship in low field regime. The observed results indicate that the field emission characteristics of chemically grown SnO2 structures are comparable to the vapor grown nanostructures.