High field emission efficiency surface conduction electron emitters

Abstract

Two different surface conduction electron-emitter (SCE) structures with the nanogap of 90 nm wide fabricated by hydrogen embrittlement (HE) and focused ion beam techniques are simulated for the first time. We employ a three-dimensional particle-in-cell method coupling with finite-difference time-domain scheme to simulate the property of electron emission in these SCEs. Our calibrated simulation predicts high emission efficiency of the SCE structure which is fabricated by HE. Compared with the other SCE structure, it is observed that the proposed structure possesses low power consumption at the fixed emission current when the width of nanogap becomes narrower. The current-voltage characteristics including conducting mechanisms are investigated and explained.