Field emission from lotiform-like ZnO nanostructures synthesized via thermal evaporation method

Novel lotiform ZnO nanostructures were synthesized on silicon substrate via simple thermal evaporation. The average diameter of the ZnO nanostructures is ∼1.5 μm. The lotiform-like ZnO structures were formed by nanorods arrays with the average diameter of 70 nm. The as-grown lotiform ZnO nanostructures have excellent field-emission properties such as the low turn-on field of 3.4 V/μm, and very high emission current density of 12.4 mA/cm2 at the field of 9.6 V/μm. These features make the lotiform-like ZnO nanostructures competitive candidates for field-emission-based displays.