Aqueous Phase Synthesis and Enhanced Field Emission Properties of ZnO-Sulfide Heterojunction Nanowires

ZnO-CdS, ZnO-ZnS, and ZnO-Ag(2)S core-shell heterojunction structures were fabricated using low-temperature, facile and simple aqueous solution approaches. The polycrystalline sulfide shells effectively enhance the field emission (FE) properties of ZnO nanowires arrays (NWAs). This results from the formation of the staggered gap heterointerface (ZnO-sulfide) which could lead to an energy well at the interfaces. Hence, electrons can be collected when an electric field is applied. It is observed that ZnO-ZnS NWAs have the lowest turn-on field (3.0 Vμm(−1)), compared with ZnO-CdS NWAs (6.3 Vμm(−1)) and ZnO-Ag(2)S NWAs (5.0 Vμm(−1)). This may be associated with the pyramid-like ZnS shell which increases the number of emission nanotips. Moreover, the Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) plot displays a nonlinear relationship in the low and high electric field regions caused by the double well potential effect of the heterojunction structures.