TY - JOUR
T1 - Highly flexible and robust N-doped SiC nanoneedle field emitters
AU - Chen, Shanliang
AU - Ying, Pengzhan
AU - Wang, Lin
AU - Wei, Guodong
AU - Gao, Fengmei
AU - Zheng, Jinju
AU - Shang, Minhui
AU - Yang, Zuobao
AU - Yang, Weiyou
AU - Wu, Tao
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: Research reported in this publication was financially supported by the 973 program (Grant no. 2012CB326407) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, Grant nos. 51372122 and 51372123). This work was also supported by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
PY - 2015/1/23
Y1 - 2015/1/23
N2 - Flexible field emission (FE) emitters, whose unique advantages are lightweight and conformable, promise to enable a wide range of technologies, such as roll-up flexible FE displays, e-papers and flexible light-emitting diodes. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time highly flexible SiC field emitters with low turn-on fields and excellent emission stabilities. n-Type SiC nanoneedles with ultra-sharp tips and tailored N-doping levels were synthesized via a catalyst-assisted pyrolysis process on carbon fabrics by controlling the gas mixture and cooling rate. The turn-on field, threshold field and current emission fluctuation of SiC nanoneedle emitters with an N-doping level of 7.58 at.% are 1.11 V μm-1, 1.55 V μm-1 and 8.1%, respectively, suggesting the best overall performance for such flexible field emitters. Furthermore, characterization of the FE properties under repeated bending cycles and different bending states reveal that the SiC field emitters are mechanically and electrically robust with unprecedentedly high flexibility and stabilities. These findings underscore the importance of concurrent morphology and composition controls in nanomaterial synthesis and establish SiC nanoneedles as the most promising candidate for flexible FE applications. © 2015 Nature Publishing Group All rights reserved.
AB - Flexible field emission (FE) emitters, whose unique advantages are lightweight and conformable, promise to enable a wide range of technologies, such as roll-up flexible FE displays, e-papers and flexible light-emitting diodes. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time highly flexible SiC field emitters with low turn-on fields and excellent emission stabilities. n-Type SiC nanoneedles with ultra-sharp tips and tailored N-doping levels were synthesized via a catalyst-assisted pyrolysis process on carbon fabrics by controlling the gas mixture and cooling rate. The turn-on field, threshold field and current emission fluctuation of SiC nanoneedle emitters with an N-doping level of 7.58 at.% are 1.11 V μm-1, 1.55 V μm-1 and 8.1%, respectively, suggesting the best overall performance for such flexible field emitters. Furthermore, characterization of the FE properties under repeated bending cycles and different bending states reveal that the SiC field emitters are mechanically and electrically robust with unprecedentedly high flexibility and stabilities. These findings underscore the importance of concurrent morphology and composition controls in nanomaterial synthesis and establish SiC nanoneedles as the most promising candidate for flexible FE applications. © 2015 Nature Publishing Group All rights reserved.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/575637
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/am2014126.pdf
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84927737425&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/am.2014.126
DO - 10.1038/am.2014.126
M3 - Article
VL - 7
SP - e157-e157
JO - NPG Asia Materials
JF - NPG Asia Materials
SN - 1884-4049
IS - 1
ER -