SYNTHESIS OF WELL-ALIGNED HETEROJUNCTIONS OF CARBON NANOTUBES AND SILICON NANOWIRES AND THEIR FIELD EMISSION PROPERTIES

摘要

Silicon is the most important electronic material, its nanoscale form, Si nanowires (SiNWs) has recently attracted much attention due to its unusual quantum confinement effects as well as potentially useful electrical optical, mechanical, and chemical properties. Among these properties, electron field emission is one of the most interesting from the standpoint of science and technology. However, silicon has some disadvantages resulted from its inherent properties. It is easily oxidized and vulnerable to the damage by ion bombardment during fabrication and/or operation, which can hurt the uniformity and the efficiency of electron emission. Considering the advantages of carbon nanotubes as a field emitter tip, combination of these two materials, such as filling CNTs with SiNWs, or coating SiNWs with CNTs will be more robust and result in an even more diverse range of applications. Additionally, such applications usually require controlled growth of the nanostructures in orientation and size in order to be capable of being incorporated effectively into devices.