Zinc sulfide nanowire arrays on silicon wafers for field emitters

Wurtzite structured zinc sulfide (ZnS) nanowire arrays are synthesized on silicon (111) wafers by a facile evaporation-condensation approach. These ZnS nanowire arrays possess predominant field emission properties with a low turn-on field of 2.9 V microm(-1), a low threshold field of 4.25 V microm(-1), a high field-enhancement factor (over 2700), and a high stability with a low fluctuation (approximately 0.8%). The improved field emission performance of these ZnS nanowire arrays is attributed to their specific crystallographic feature-array structures with nanotips and high single crystallinity. These results suggest that such ZnS nanowire arrays can be used as building blocks for field emitters.