Comparative study on different plasma-induced electron emission properties of ZnO nanorod and carbon nanotube arrays

¹  Department of Materials Physics, State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, University of Science and Technology - Beijing, 100083 China
²  Institute of Fluid Physics - Mianyang 621900 China
³  Department of Physics, Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University Beijing 100084, China

Corresponding author: yuezhang@ustb.edu.cn

Received: 17 November 2009
Accepted: 6 April 2010

Abstract

The plasma-induced electron emission properties of ZnO nanorod and carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays were investigated under a pulsed electric field. The formation of plasma on the array surface was found and intense current electron beams were obtained from the two kinds of arrays. The plasma-induced emission properties of the ZnO nanorod and CNT arrays have big differences. Under the same electric field, the CNT arrays have higher emission current than the ZnO nanorod arrays. The uniformity of the plasma-induced electron emission was in situ characterized by the plasma radiation and Cerenkov radiation. With the emission currents changing, the emissions of the ZnO nanorod arrays are always very uniform; but that of the CNT arrays are non-uniform. Moreover, the plasma-induced electron emission stability of ZnO nanorod arrays is better than that of the CNT arrays. The emission uniformity and stability of the ZnO nanorod arrays is better than that of the CNT arrays.