Well-aligned zinc sulfide nanobelt arrays: Excellent field emitters

Large-scale, well-aligned and oriented wurtzite ZnS nanobelt arrays are fabricated by a simple solvothermal reaction and subsequent heat treatment. The nanobelts grow along the [0001] direction perpendicularly on a zinc substrate, which are about 30 nm in thickness, several hundreds of nanometers in width, and up to 4 mu m in length. Importantly, such nanostructured arrays show a good field emission property with low turn-on field (3.8 V mu m(-1)) and high field enhancement factor (similar to 1800), which is ascribed to the top edges and corners of the freestanding and well aligned nanobelts, and good electric contact with the conducting substrate where they grow. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.