Rod-shaped and wire-shaped SnO2
nanowhiskers were synthesized by thermal evaporating of tin powders at
900 °C. Three Raman
peaks (474, 632, 774 cm−1) showed the typical feature of the rutile phase of as-synthesized
SnO2
nanowhiskers, which was consistent with the result of x-ray diffraction. A relatively low turn-on field of
1.37 V µm−1 at a current
density of 0.1 µA cm−2
was obtained. The dependence of emission current density on the electric
field followed a Fowler–Nordheim relationship. Our results indicated that
SnO2
nanowhiskers had an interesting FE property as a wide band gap semiconductor.