Structure and field emission properties of SnO2 nanowires

SnO2 nanowires were fabricated using a simple and economical method of rapid heating SnO2 and graphite powders at 850 °C in a flow of high-purity N2 as carrier gas. Research by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicates that SnO2 nanowires are primitive tetragonal in structure with the lattice constant a = b = 0.443 nm and c = 0.372 nm. Observations by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) show that SnO2 is of nanowire structure. The selected area electron diffraction (SAED) shows that the nanowires are perfect single crystal structure. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) exhibits the difference of nanostructure materials and general materials. The field emission (FE) properties had also been studied.