Silver Oxide Nanoparticle Decorated Carbon Nanotube as Efficient Electron Gun

Abstract

Although there have been numerous great field emission reports of pure and hybrid carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with ultra-low turn-on field and ultra-high emission stability, practically all of the reports indicate concern about CNT manufacture on a large scale. This is due to the fact that CNT experiments require high pressure, temperature, metal catalysis, and an inert environment, and even after meeting all of these perfect conditions, the yield is quite low. Furthermore, as CNT is relatively inert in nature, it is nearly hard to make it reactive with any other metal without adequate functionalization. Keeping this in mind, this work reports the synthesis of CNT in amorphous form by a simple low-temperature solid-state reaction between ammonium chloride and ferrocene. The as-synthesized CNT is further functionalized by silver oxide nanoparticle without additional functionalization. X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirms the proper phase formation as well as the successful functionalization of the pure and hybrid sample, electron microscopic images confirm the successful functionalization of the as-prepared CNT whereas Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic analysis gives the ideas about different bonding present in all the samples. It has been found that the hybrid sample gives much better field emission performance compare to the pure CNT with betterment in both turn-on field and enhancement factor more than 100%. The betterment is believed to be due to the favorable band bending, larger number of emission sites, and sharp curvature of the silver particles.