Carbon-in-Al4C3 Nanowire Superstructures for Field Emitters

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• 作者：Yong Sun ; Hao Cui ; Li Gong ; Jian Chen ; Juncong She ; Yanming Ma ; Peikang Shen ; Chengxin Wang
• 刊名：ACS Nano
• 出版年：2011
• 出版时间：February 22, 2011
• 年：2011
• 卷：5
• 期：2
• 页码：932-941
• 全文大小：1311K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：1936-086X

文摘

As a kind of ionic (or salt-like) carbide, for Al₄C₃, hardly any active functions have been found except for structure material purposes. However, considering the unique characteristic features of its crystal structure, we think Al₄C₃ in fact might have huge potential for exhibiting active functionality on field-emission applications. Herein, we report the feasibility to approach such emitters by creating Al₄C₃-based nanowire superstructures. The conductive amorphous carbon (a-C) nanolayers are embedded quasi-periodically in Al₄C₃ nanowire and generate essential electrical contact to the insulating Al₄C₃. The superstructures acting as cold electron emitters display excellent field emission performance with the turn-on field as low as 0.65−1.3 V/μm and the threshold field down to 2.1−2.6 V/μm. We speculate that the emission characteristics, which are ever better than carbon nanotubes, are attributed to the unique crystal structure of Al₄C₃ and the enhanced electrons transport in the nanowires due to the existence of a-C nanolayers. Such emitters are technologically useful, because they can be easily fabricated on large substrates, and the synthesis process is simple and broadly applicable. The findings conceptually provide new opportunities for the application of Al₄C₃ ceramic material in vacuum microelectronic devices.