Morphology-dependent field emission characteristics of SiC nanowires

Felted, curly, and straight beta-SiC nanowires (SiCNWs) had been synthesized by chemical vapor reaction, and morphology-dependent field emission (FE) characteristics were chiefly investigated. The turn-on and threshold fields were 2.0 and 5.3 V/mu m for felted nanowires, 1.5 and 3.25 V/mu m for curly nanowires, and 1.0 and 2.05 V/mu m for straight nanowires, respectively, suggesting that morphology played an important role in FE properties of the SiCNWs. Magnetic field shielding effect is proposed to explain the morphology-dependent FE characteristics, and it may stand as a nice referential work for researching FE properties of other wirelike materials. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3533813]