Reparation of ZnO nanowires and their field emission properties

Straight crystalline zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires have been grown in air or oxygen using a simple thermal oxidation of Zn block at temperature 350/spl deg/C or 400/spl deg/C. The structure and morphology of the nanowires were studied by SEM and XRD. The fabricated nanowires have a uniform distribution in their diameters (about 30 nm) and length (about 1 /spl mu/m) and showed good field emission properties. Typical turn-on and threshold field for the electron emission were 6.5 V//spl mu/m and 11.0 V//spl mu/m, respectively. The results show that ZnO nanowires are a potential candidate as cold cathode.