Synthesis of Ni doped ZnO nanostructures by low temperature wet chemical method and their enhanced field emission properties

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that Ni doping enhances the field emission properties of ZnO nanostructures synthesized via a low-temperature wet chemical method, with improved morphology and reduced turn-on fields.

Contribution

It introduces a simple wet chemical synthesis of Ni-doped ZnO nanostructures and shows their improved field emission performance with increasing Ni content.

Findings

Ni doping changes nanostructure morphology from nanoneedles to nanoflakes.

Turn-on field decreases with higher Ni doping levels.

ZnO with 10% Ni doping exhibits the lowest turn-on field of 1.7 V/μm.

Abstract

In this study, we report the enhancement in field emission (FE) properties of ZnO nanostructure by Ni doping at the base pressure of ~1 x 10-8 mbar, which were grown by the simple wet chemical process. ZnO nanostructure shows single crystalline wurtzite structure up to Ni 10% doping. FESEM represents change in the nanostructure morphology from thick nanoneedles to nanoflakes via thin nanorods with increase in Ni doped ZnO. The turn-on field required to draw a field emission (FE) current density at 1{\mu}A/cm2 is found to be 2.5, 2.3, 1.8 and 1.7 V/{\mu}m for ZnO(Ni0%), ZnO(Ni5%), ZnO(Ni7.5%) and ZnO(Ni10%), respectively.