Emergence of a non-Fowler-Nordheim-type behavior for a general planar tunneling barrier

摘要

In this work we investigate a generalized tunneling barrier for planar emitters at zero temperature. We present the evidence of the emergence of a non-Fowler-Nordheim-type general behavior for the field emission current density in the case that the Fermi energy (mu) is comparable with or smaller that the decay width (d(F)). Therefore, for some non-metals or materials that have very small Fermi energy the standard Fowler-Nordheim-type theory may require a correction. In the opposite regime, i.e., for mu much larger that d(F), we confirm that the conventional theory is suitable for metals. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.