The improvement of the field emission properties from graphene films: Ti transition layer and annealing process

Chemical-reduced graphene oxide (rGO) films were deposited on titanium (Ti)coated silicon substrates by a simple electrophoretic deposition. The rGO films were annealed under argon atmosphere at different temperatures. The morphology and microstructure of the rGO films before and after annealing were characterized using scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscope. The field emission behaviors from these rGO films were investigated. The results show that, Ti-based transition layer can improve the stability of field emission from the rGO film, and the annealing at appropriate temperature is in favor of the field emission. Particularly, the rGO film displays an unexpected vacuum breakdown phenomenon at a relatively high current density. In addition, it is found that the field emission property of the rGO film is dependent on anode-sample distance and the film exhibits lower turn on field at larger anode-sample distance. Copyright 2012 Author(s). This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3702588]