Facile fabrication of aligned SnO2 nanotube arrays and their field-emission property

•The aligned SnO2 nanotube arrays were prepared on Si by liquid-phase deposition with the solution system of SnF2.•The growth mechanism for the fabricated SnO2 nanotubes related to the ZnO nanorod template was investigated.•The SnO2 nanotube arrays showed efficient field-emission property.

The aligned SnO2 nanotube arrays on Si substrate have been prepared via liquid-phase deposition with the solution system of SnF2 utilizing ZnO nanorod arrays as sacrificial template. The SnO2 nanotubes are distributed uniformly and grown perpendicularly to the substrate. The SnO2 nanotubes are rutile phase with the outside diameter of ~190–310 nm and the wall thickness of ~45 nm. The template-related growth mechanism for the formation of SnO2 nanotube is investigated. Experimentally, the SnO2 nanotube array shows an efficient field-emission property, which is favorable for realizing high performance cold cathode electron emitters.