Experimental study on field emission performance of bismuth sulfide nanoflowers

Bismuth sulfide (Bi2S3) nanoflowers with unit size of about 5 μm and "petals" on the scale of 50~100 nm were investigated for field emission (FE) properties. Current density of the Bi2S3 nanoflowers versus applied electric field and the Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) plot, as well as long term stability of FE performance were experimentally studied. Results show that the Bi2S3 nanoflowers have good FE properties a turn-on field of 1.18 V·μm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-1</sup> before the long-term stability test, which implies that the nanoflowers have good potential for FE applications. Also, the long-term stability results show stable FE current density over 60 hours under an electric field of 2 V·μm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-1</sup> . The FE of the device was tested again; the FE performance was similar to that before the long-term test.