Copper （Cu）-doped ZrO2 （CZO） films with different Cu content （0 at.%- 8.07 at.%） are successfully deposited on Si （100） substrates by direct current （DC） and radio frequency （RF） magnetron co-sputtering. The influences of Cu content on structural, morphological, optical and electrical properties of CZO films are discussed in detail. The CZO films exhibit ZrO2 monocline （1^-11） preferred orientation, which indicates that Cu atoms are doped in ZrO2 host lattice. The crystallite size estimated form x-ray diffraction （XRD） increases by Cu doping, which accords with the result observed from the scanning electron microscope （SEM）. The electrical resistivity decreases from 2.63 Ω·cm to 1.48 Ω·cm with Cu doping content increasing, which indicates that the conductivity of CZO film is improved. However, the visible light transmittances decrease slightly by Cu doping and the optical band gap values decrease from 4.64 eV to 4.48 eV for CZO fihns.
The field emission （FE） characteristics of nano-structured carbon films （NSCFs） are investigated. The saturation behaviour of the field emission current density found at high electric field E cannot be reasonably explained by the traditional Fowler-Nordheim （F-N） theory. A three-region E model and the curve-fitting method are utilized for discussing the FE characteristics of NSCFs. In the low, high, and middle E regions, the FE mechanism is reasonably explained by a modified F-N model, a corrected space-charge-limited-current （SCLC） model and the joint model of F N and SCLC mechanism, respectively. Moreover, the measured FE data accord well with the results from our corrected theoretical model.
