Field emission enhancement of Au-Si nano-particle-decorated silicon nanowires

Au-Si nano-particle-decorated silicon nanowire arrays have been fabricated by Au film deposition on silicon nanowire array substrates and then post-thermal annealing under hydrogen atmosphere. Field emission measurements illustrated that the turn-on fields of the non-annealed Au-coated SiNWs were 6.02 to 7.51 V/mu m, higher than that of the as-grown silicon nanowires, which is about 5.01 V/mu m. Meanwhile, after being annealed above 650 degrees C, Au-Si nano-particles were synthesized on the top surface of the silicon nanowire arrays and the one-dimensional Au-Si nano-particle-decorated SiNWs had a much lower turn-on field, 1.95 V/mu m. The results demonstrated that annealed composite silicon nanowire array-based electron field emitters may have great advantages over many other emitters.