Field Emission in Ultrathin PdSe2 Back-Gated Transistors

This study deals with the electrical transport in back-gate field-effect transistors with ultrathin palladium diselenide (PdSe2) channels. The devices are normally-on and exhibit dominant n-type conduction at low pressure. The electron conduction of PdSe2 nanosheets, combined with the sharp edge and the work function decreasing with the number of layers, opens up new applications in vacuum electronics. This work is the first experimental demonstration of field emission current from few-layer PdSe2 and extends the plethora of applications of this recently isolated pentagonal layered material. Field-emission from PdSe2 nanosheets is obtained with a turn-on field below 100 V µm−1 and attains currents up to the µA.