Structure and field emission properties of SnO2 nanowires

Abstract SnO 2 nanowires were fabricated using a simple and economical method of rapid heating SnO 2 and graphite powders at 850 °C in a flow of high-purity N 2 as carrier gas. Research by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicates that SnO 2 nanowires are primitive tetragonal in structure with the lattice constant a  =  b  = 0.443 nm and c  = 0.372 nm. Observations by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) show that SnO 2 is of nanowire structure. The selected area electron diffraction (SAED) shows that the nanowires are perfect single crystal structure. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) exhibits the difference of nanostructure materials and general materials. The field emission (FE) properties had also been studied.