Surface-assisted synthesis of microscale hexagonal plates and flower-like patterns of single-crystalline titanium disulfide and their field-emission properties

Microscale hexagonal plates of single-crystalline TiS2 with a border length of about 7.8 mu m and thickness of about 156 nm were grown on Ti substrate by a facile surface-assisted chemical-vapor-tran sport approach at 550 degrees C. The TiS2 plates (petals) and Ti particles (flower center) constituted flower-like patterns when the reaction temperature was at 650-750 degrees C. The surface of the Ti foils was completely converted into TiS2 microplates with a thickness of 100-400 nm when the reaction temperature reached 850 degrees C. The growth mechanism was briefly discussed. Preliminary field-emission experiments using the samples obtained at 550, 650, and 850 degrees C as cold electron cathodes showed that the materials have a notable emission current, and their turn-on fields, defined as the electric field required to produce a current density of 10 mu A/cm(2), are 11.5, 16.3, and 19.5 V/mu m, respectively, suggesting their potential application in electron emission devices.