THE STRUCTURAL AND ELECTRON FIELD EMISSION PROPERTIES OF ION- BEAM-SYNTHESISED METALLIC-DIELECTRIC NANOCOMPOSITES

Abstract. Metallic-dielectric nanocomposites, including Ag-SiO2, Co-SiO2, and WC-SiC, were synthesised on silicon substrates using ion implantation. The electron field emission (FE) proper-ties of these nanocomposites were studied and correlated to their microstructure using atomic force microscopy, Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. These nanocomposite layers exhibit excellent FE properties and give an emission current of 1 nA at the applied electric fields of as low as 5 V/µm for Co-SiO2 nanocomposites. Moreover, the results clearly show that isolated metallic nanoclusters embedded in a relatively electrically insulating matrix, can create local field enhancement for the samples, which we attribute to the enhancement factor associated with electrical inhomogeneity effects. 1