Journal of NanomaterialsVolume 2012 (2012), Article ID 861591, 4 pagesdoi:10.1155/2012/861591

Research Article

Field Emission Characteristics of /CNTs Composites Prepared by Microwave-Assisted Wet Impregnation

Sreejarani K. Pillai,¹ Sarah C. Motshekga,1,2 Suprakas Sinha Ray,1,3 and John Kennedy⁴

¹DST/CSIR Nanotechnology Innovation Centre, National Centre for Nano-Structured Materials, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria 0001, South Africa²Department of Chemical Engineering, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria 0001, South Africa³Department of Chemical Technology, University of Johannesburg, Doornfontein, Johannesburg 2018, South Africa⁴National Isotope Centre, GNS Science, 30 Gracefield Road, Lower Hutt 5010, New Zealand

Received 2 September 2011; Accepted 17 November 2011

Academic Editor: Chunyi Zhi

Copyright © 2012 Sreejarani K. Pillai et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract.

The SnO₂/CNT composites were prepared by microwave-assisted wet impregnation at 60°C. The process was optimized by varying the microwave power and reaction time. Raman analysis showed the typical features of the rutile phase of as-synthesized SnO₂ nanoparticles on CNTs, which was consistent with the results from X-ray diffraction. Enhanced field emission performance was observed for SnO₂/CNTs composite prepared by a microwave method when compared to pure CNTs and SnO₂/CNTs composite prepared by conventional wet impregnation. The dependence of emission current density on the electric field followed a Fowler-Nordheim relationship.

1. Introduction

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have remained in the forefront of intense research for more than a decade due to their exceptional physical, chemical, and electronic properties that have been inherited from the parent in-plane graphite [1]. The unique electronic properties of CNTs—due to the quantum confinement of electrons normal to the nanotube axis—make them ideal candidates for electron field emission. A significant enhancement in turn-on field, threshold field, and emission current stability can be attained by field enhancement effect due to their large aspect ratio, chemical inertness, high electrical conductivity, and mechanical strength. CNTs have been reported as excellent field emitters at low operating voltages [2]. Any surface treatments or modifications of CNTs can cause changes in the field emission (FE) characteristics of CNTs. It has been reported that by decorating the CNT surface with a metal having low work function leads to improvement in electrical conductivity [3], which is expected to enhance the field FE properties.

Tin dioxide (SnO₂) has long been recognized as an important n-type semiconductor. The wide bandgap (3.6 eV at 300 K) and high achievable carrier concentration (up to 6 × 10²⁰ cm⁻³) make it an excellent candidate for solid-state gas sensors [4], lithium ion batteries [5], solar cells [6], and cathode emitters of the FE device [7]. In the last few years, the FE measurement results of SnO₂ nanostructures such as nanobelts [7], nanowhiskers [8, 9], and beak-like nanorods [10] show that 1D and quasi-1D SnO₂ nanostructures have promising applications in FE devices. Hybrid structures of SnO₂ nanoparticles and CNTs could potentially display novel electronic properties other than those of individual components. This is based on the fact that the work function of CNTs is approximately equal to SnO₂, which makes the electrons travel through the SnO₂ grains to CNTs and then conduct in the CNTs with low resistance [11]. To date, various techniques have been used to prepare SnO₂/CNT hybrid structures, such as wet-chemical [12–15], sol-gel [16], gas-phase [17, 18], and supercritical fluid [19] methods. However, all those techniques are time consuming, expensive, and show relatively low capacity retention. Microwave assisted synthesis has recently shown remarkable advantages such as reduced reaction time, high reaction rate, small particle size, and homogenous and narrow size distribution of particles over the conventional synthesis routes [20].

In this work, FE performance of SnO₂/CNTs composite prepared by a simple and efficient microwave assisted wet impregnation is described. The FE characteristics of the prepared SnO₂/CNTs composite are compared with that of pure CNTs and similar composite prepared by conventional wet impregnation.

2. Experimental Details

The preparation and characterization procedures for the SnO₂/CNT composites are reported elsewhere [21]. The composites prepared by different procedures are denoted by SnO₂/CNTs-WI (conventional) and SnO₂/CNTs-MW (microwave). To investigate the FE property of materials, the powder samples were mounted onto a metallic substrate using silver conductive paste and electrically connected to a stainless steel block [22]. The assembly was placed in a vacuum chamber evacuated to a residual gas pressure of 2 × 10−7 mbar. The SnO₂/CNT composites were the cathode and a highly polished stainless steel rod with a circular flat tip of 4 mm diameter served as the anode. The anode was mounted on a microadjustment system (μm resolution) to set the anode-cathode separation. FE measurements were performed by applying different voltages across the stainless steel anode and the cathode in the vacuum chamber. A DC voltage was applied, and current was measured between the cathode and anode using a Keithley 237 source measure unit (Keithley Instruments Ltd., Reading, UK). The emission current was measured as a function of anode-cathode separation between 50 and 120 μm.

3. Results and Discussion

Microwave heating produced SnO₂/CNT composites with a different concentration of SnO2 nanoparticles. The density of nanoparticles on the CNT surface increased with increasing microwave power and exposure time. Based on the microwave process optimization results (not given here), the SnO₂/CNT sample prepared at 500 W for 5 min was chosen for FE studies. The formation of a considerable amount of SnO₂ nanoparticles on the CNT surface within 5 min of reaction time may be due to the strong microwave adsorption of CNTs [23]. The structural characterization results for the samples were published elsewhere [21].

HRTEM and SEM images showed heavy coating of the CNT surface with spherical SnO₂ nanoparticles in the size range of 2–5 nm for the sample prepared by microwave method. On the other hand, the sample from the conventional method showed the presence of spherical nanoparticles with smaller sizes (2-3 nm) on the surface with a larger interparticle distance (Figures 1(a) and 1(b)). Raman spectra of the composite samples (Figure 1()) showed additional peaks below 1000 cm−1 corresponding to SnO₂ nanocrystals [24, 25] other than those for the CNTs (G-band at 1585 and D-band at 1300 cm⁻¹). XRD patterns of the composite samples showed characteristic tetragonal SnO₂ phase along with C (002) and C (100) peaks (with values of 0.34 nm) of CNTs.

Figure 1: (a) SEM and TEM images of SnO₂/CNTs composite prepared by conventional wet impregnation method, (b) SEM and TEM images of SnO₂/CNTs composite prepared by microwave assisted wet impregnation method, and (c) Raman spectra for corresponding samples.

Figure 2(a) shows the current density-applied electric field (J-E) characteristics of pure CNTs and those for the composites from conventional and microwave methods. The work function of the CNTs is assumed to be 5.0 eV (that of graphite) for comparison of the samples. The corresponding Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) plots are shown in Figure 2(b).

(a)

(b)

Figure 2: (a) Field emission plot for pure CNTs and SnO₂/CNTs composites prepared by conventional and microwave-assisted wet impregnation methods and (b) Fowler-Nordheim plots for the corresponding samples.

The values of turn-on field defined as the electric field required for extracting a current density of 10 μA/cm² and an emission current density of 1 mA cm⁻² show an apparent decrease with microwave samples when compared to pure CNTs and composite prepared by conventional method as shown in Figure 2(a). The values obtained were 1.0, 1.3, and 1.49 V μm⁻¹ for the composites from microwave, conventional methods, and pure CNTs, respectively. This demonstrates that the FE property for the obtained SnO₂/CNTs-MW hybrid has been improved significantly. TEM images show that the number of SnO₂ nanoparticles per unit surface area is higher for the sample prepared by microwave method, which results in the formation of many additional emitter tips on the CNT surface. The heavy coating of SnO₂ nanoparticles obtained by this method prevents the neighbouring CNTs from clustering together and hence reduces the possibility of electrostatic screening from aggregated dense CNTs [26].

The F-N property for all the samples is given in Figure 2(b). As per the figure, the F-N plots for pure CNTs and SnO₂/CNT composites that explain the tunnelling of electrons through a potential barrier show an exponential dependence between the emission current and applied field given by (1) [27]: where  A eV V⁻²;  eV−3/2 V μm⁻¹; , where is the separation between the anode and the cathode and is the applied voltage, is the field enhancement factor, and is the work function of emitters.

The FE enhancement factor can be calculated from the slopes of the F-N plots. Generally, it has been identified that a significant increase in field enhancement factor is strongly ascribed to the geometrical parameters of field emitter, mainly its surface morphology and high density of the substrate [28]. The values calculated for various samples taking the work function () of CNTs as 5.0 eV were 3.1 × 10³, 6.1 × 10³, and 6.7 × 10³ for pure CNTs and SnO₂/CNTs composites from conventional and microwave assisted wet impregnation methods, respectively. The higher values for the composite samples when compared to pure CNTs are attributed to the presence of spherical SnO₂ nanoparticles which act as additional independent emission centers other than the CNT tips. Ho et al. recently reported similar observations on ZnO/CNT hybrids with different ZnO layer density [29]. The SnO₂/CNT composite from the microwave assisted wet impregnation method shows significantly enhanced FE when compared to its counterpart from conventional method which may be due to the increased number of SnO₂ nanoparticles that contributes to the local field strengthening and emission current. In this case, the electron transport channels on the CNT surface are amplified by the presence of uniformly dispersed SnO₂ nanoparticles. The spherical SnO₂ particles on the CNT surface can act as additional emission sites in addition to the tip of CNTs. Moreover, similarity in the work function of CNTs and SnO₂ makes it easier for electrons to diffuse to CNTs resulting in high surface electron concentration.

4. Conclusions

The SnO₂/CNT composites were prepared by microwave method. Field emission properties of the composites were measured and compared with pure CNTs and similar composites prepared by conventional method. The microwave method efficiently produced more dense decoration of the CNT surface with SnO₂ nanoparticles in 5 min. The composites showed enhanced field emission properties over pure CNTs due to the presence of SnO₂ nanoparticles. SnO₂/CNT composite prepared by microwave-assisted wet impregnation method showed higher value. This is attributed to the fact that the composite has a higher number of SnO₂ nanoparticles in the CNT sidewalls that act as independent emitters besides the CNT tips. The conventional method resulted in a composite with lower density of nanoparticles and higher interparticle distance. The results prove that CNT based hybrid materials with improved field emission properties can be prepared by a simple microwave-assisted wet impregnation method.

Acknowledgments

The authors (S. K. Pillai, S. C. Motshekga, and S. S. Ray) wish to thank DST and CSIR, South Africa, for the financial support.

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