Study on Field Emission from Hafnium Oxynitride Prepared by DC Sputtering

Hafnium oxynitride films were prepared by direct current sputtering with subsequently annealed in atmosphere air. Their field emission characteristics were investigated. Low turn-on field, high field emission current density, and very good field emission stability were showed, which can be attributed to their electrically nanostructured heterogeneous frame in the hafnium oxynitride. High voltage activation played a critical role in improving the field emission of HfOxNy which was thought that the chemical structure and the surface character of the samples were changed when at high voltage. The field emission mechanism for HfOxNy accords very well with the classical Fowler-Nordheim tunneling theory.