Feasibility of tunable infrared detectors using metalhyphen;insulatorhyphen;metal structures

摘要

It is suggested that metalhyphen;insulatorhyphen;metal (MIM) structures under bias can be used as voltagehyphen;controlled tunable detectors. Theoretical results are based upon adapting a theory of photostimulated field emission to the MIM geometry. It is shown that tunneling resonances, which exist both below and above the tunnelinghyphen;barrier maximum, provide a mechanism by which the biased MIM junction detects photons within a tunable wavelength band. It is also suggested that exploitation of these tunneling resonances can improve the sensitivity of the scanning tunneling microscope.