Improved Field Emission Properties of Ag-Decorated Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

A field emission is fulfilled by utilizing the vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) decorating their external surface with Ag-nanoparticles. It is found that the average length and diameter of the CNTs are ~ 4.52 μm and 45 nm, respectively. We also coated Ag nanoparticles ~ 5 nm onto the nanotube surfaces and fabricated CNTs for field emission. The turn-on field and current density of the CNTs clearly indicate that the field emission of the coated-Ag is enhanced considerably. In this letter, the decoration of Ag nanoparticles effectively decreased the effective work function (Φ
_eff
) and turn-on field (Eto).