Direct growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes on conducting ZnO films and its field emission properties

摘要

Despite the necessity of direct growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) on conducting films for versatility of designing device architectures for nanoelectronics and optoelectronics, most of SWNT growths have been carried out on insulating films or supporting materials such as SiO_2 and Al_2O_3. Here, the authors report that conducting ZnO films can be used as both an underlying layer for the SWNT growth and an electrode for device operation. ZnO films with a resistivity in the order of 10~(-3) Ω cm were deposited by atomic layer deposition. SWNTs were directly grown on the ZnO film by water plasma chemical vapor deposition. The authors demonstrate field emission properties from the SWNT/ZnO cathode, of which the turn-on electric field for a current density of 10 μA/cm~2 and the field enhancement factor are 1.8 V/μm and 3200, respectively.