P2–27: Enhanced field emission from hybrid CuO/ZnO nano-structure

The Field emission (FE) is one of the main applications of one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures with enhanced local electric field due to their sharp tips and high aspect ratio [1]. One of such 1D field emitters is CuO nanowires. CuO nanowires are capable of achieving a high field emission current density at relatively low field and exhibiting uniform field emission distributions [2]. An advantage of CuO nanowires is that they can be readily synthesized on a large scale from oxidizing Cu by a simple heating technique. Hybrid nano-structure combining the properties of two or more different types of nanostructures could further enhance the field emission. There has been no field emission study on hybrid nano-structure with CuO and ZnO reported. Hybrid CuO/ZnO nano-structure is synthesized by directly heating technique and magnetron sputtering. Field emission properties of the hybrids show the reduced emission turn-on field and enhanced current.