Improved field emission characteristics of large-area films of molybdenum trioxide microbelt

Abstract

We study the field emission characteristics of large-area films of crystalline MoO3 microbelt grown on silicon substrate by thermal evaporation in air using a commercial infrared sintering furnace. It is found that their turn-on field, threshold field, resistance to microdischarge and field emission current stability are better than MoO3 nanowires, MoO 3 nanobelts and MoO3 nanoflower. In addition, good uniform distribution of field emission sites can be observed. The physical reasons are explained responsible for such improvements on field emission characteristics of MoO 3 material. These results indicate that large-area MoO 3 microbelts may be suitable for cold-cathode electron source application. © 2010 Dongmei Ban et al.