Abstract
We report comparative field electron emission (FE) studies on a large-area array of two-dimensional MoS(2)-coated @ one-dimensional (1D) brookite (β) TiO(2) nanorods synthesized on Si substrate utilizing hot-filament metal vapor deposition technique and pulsed laser deposition method, independently. The 10 nm wide and 760 nm long 1D β-TiO(2) nanorods were coated with MoS(2) layers of thickness ∼4 (±2), 20 (±3), and 40 (±3) nm. The turn-on field (E (on)) of 2.5 V/μm required to a draw current density of 10 μA/cm(2) observed for MoS(2)-coated 1D β-TiO(2) nanorods emitters is significantly lower than that of doped/undoped 1D TiO(2) nanostructures, pristine MoS(2) sheets, MoS(2)@SnO(2), and TiO(2)@MoS(2) heterostructure-based field emitters. The orthodoxy test confirms the viability of the field emission measurements, specifically field enhancement factor (β(FE)) of the MoS(2)@TiO(2)/Si emitters. The enhanced FE behavior of the MoS(2)@TiO(2)/Si emitter can be attributed to the modulation of the electronic properties due to heterostructure and interface effects, in addition to the high aspect ratio of the vertically aligned TiO(2) nanorods. Furthermore, these MoS(2)@TiO(2)/Si emitters exhibit better emission stability. The results obtained herein suggest that the heteroarchitecture of MoS(2)@β-TiO(2) nanorods holds the potential for their applications in FE-based nanoelectronic devices such as displays and electron sources. Moreover, the strategy employed here to enhance the FE behavior via rational design of heteroarchitecture structure can be further extended to improve other functionalities of various nanomaterials.