Field emission from oriented tin oxide rods

Abstract Tin oxide (SnO 2 ) films were grown on silicon substrates by a wet chemical route. It was found from scanning electron microscopy investigations that oriented SnO 2 rods normal to the substrates were obtained. Field emission studies were carried out in diode configuration in an all metal ultra high vacuum chamber at a base pressure ∼ 1.33 × 10 − 8  mbar. The ‘onset’ field required to draw 0.1 μA/cm 2 current density from the emitter cathode was found to be ∼ 3.4 V/μm for SnO 2 rods. The field emission current and applied field follows the Folwer–Nordheim relationship in low field regime. The observed results indicate that the field emission characteristics of chemically grown SnO 2 structures are comparable to the vapor grown nanostructures.