Effect of field penetration on electron energy distribution of field emission from N-Si emitter

Field electron emission from silicon emitter is attractive one of electron source because not only it can be integrated with functional circuits, but also can be achieved high performance. The characteristic of field emission from silicon emitter, however, is different from metals: there is an obvious peak shift of the electron energy distribution (Si-EED) with external field. The surface states are considerable issue to elucidate the emission mechanism and recent theoretical calculation shows this issue is also important for the emission from metals . Besides the surface states, the field penetration is another important term for silicon like semiconductor after considering the low conductivity. The field penetration will cause a band-bending and the Si-EED shift to low energy side. Furthermore, the band-bending will made the electron emission from other conduction bands and multi peaks are possible. This paper will investigate the effect of field penetration on electron energy distribution of field emission from N-Si emitter.