Fabrication of vertically aligned single-crystalline lanthanum hexaboride nanowire arrays and investigation of their field emission

摘要

We have developed a simple, effective, one-step, catalyst-free chemical vapor deposition method for the synthesis of high-quality LaB6 nanostructure nanowire arrays. Field-emission (FE) measurements at room temperature (RT) show that LaB6 nanowire arrays possess the best FE characteristics among all one-dimensional LaB6 nanostructures, exhibiting with a low turn-on electric field, a low threshold electric field, a high current and a good stability. Temperature-dependent FE on the nanowire arrays shows that the turn-on and threshold electric fields decreased rapidly whereas the emission current density increases significantly in the ambient temperature from RT to 723 K.