Enhanced field emission from polyaniline nano-porous thin films on PET substrate

Conducting polyaniline (PANI) nano-porous film synthesized on PET substrate by vapor deposition technique has shown excellent field emission behaviour and the emission was further enhanced by conditioning with vacuum electric discharge. Detailed study on the field emission for PANI films synthesized with different oxidant concentration was performed. Measurement was also carried out for different anode-sample separation. Turn-on field as low as 0.5 V/μm and emission current density as high as 20.96 mA/cm2 was observed. The field enhancement factors were found to be in the range of 1192–3782. The films were characterized with X-ray diffraction, UV–vis spectroscopy, Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and also atomic force microscopy. The synthesized PANI films may be a promising material for field emission devices and also for plastic display industry.