A facile synthesis and field emission property investigation of Co3O4 nanoparticles decorated graphene

The present work describes the synthesis of cobalt oxide nanoparticle decorated hydrogen exfoliated graphene (Co3O4/HEG) by exfoliating graphite oxide in hydrogen atmosphere followed by chemical reduction of cobalt salt using sodium borohydride. The synthesized material has been characterized by X-ray diffractometry, thermogravimetric analysis, field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. A flexible field emitter has been fabricated by spin coating this material on carbon cloth. Electron emission characteristics of Co3O4/HEG have been investigated using an in-house fabricated setup and analyzed using Fowler-Nordheim equation. Turn-on and threshold fields of 1.12 and 1.35 V μm−1, respectively have been observed for this material. Moreover, the present field emitter shows a reasonably good stability and repeatability.