Nanomanipulation measurement and PIC simulation of field-emission properties from a single crystallized silicon nano-emitter

Abstract

The field-emission characteristics of a single silicon nano-emitter were investigated by means of experiments and simulation models. The emitter array was fabricated by dry etching using an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) through a three-step process. A novel experimental technique was developed to precisely measure the field-emission current from a single silicon emitter. Accompanying these measurements, a parallelized three-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) code, in which the Fowler - Nordheim emission law was implemented at the emitter surface, was employed to simulate the emission current both with and without taking into account the space charge effect. Results show that the simulated I - V relationship when considering the space - charge effect was in excellent agreement with the actual measurements. Noticeably, the predicted turn-on voltage was found to be within only 9.3% of the experimental data. In addition, both the predicted and experimental data demonstrated a consistent single linear slope in the FN plot, which indicates that the field emission from a single silicon tip is a barrier-tunnelling, quantum mechanical process.