Field Emission Properties of a Single Silicon Carbide Nanowire

A single silicon Carbide(SiC) nanowire was fixed on the tungsten tip by using an electron beam induced deposition technique. The field emission properties of single SiC nanowire driven by DC and pulse have been characterized separately. The results show that the pulse-driven field emission performance of single SiC nanowire is better than the one driven by DC, including the turn-on voltage and the maximum current. An inference is proposed to qualitatively explain the improvement of field emission performance, which assumes the changes of work function on the top of single SiC nanowire due to the different stretching effect of the electrostatic field by two driving mode.