Investigation of ZnO Nanotetrapod and MgO Hybrid Field Emitter

In this letter, we report a new kind of hybrid field emitters with a mixture of ZnO nano-tetrapods and MgO particles by a spin-coating method. Due to the excellent field-emission properties of hybrid field emitters, the turn-on electric field (at a current density of 1 ??A/cm²) and the threshold electric field (at a current density of 1 mA/cm²) have been reduced to 0.6 and 0.92 V/??m, respectively. The turn-on and the threshold electric fields have been decreased by about 67% and 74% compared with the data reported previously. With these hybrid field emitters, a cathodoluminescent lamp is investigated. As the experimental results show, the operation voltage of the cathodoluminescent lamp is low, and the ratio between the anode and the cathode currents is quite high. Apart from this, the brightness uniformity of the lamp is also improved.