Comparison between experimental and computer simulations of current–voltage (I–V) characteristics of dielectric-coated photon-stimulated field emitters

For the purpose of simulating photon-stimulated field emission by taking account of three-dimensional aspects, a transfer-matrix formulation of electronic scattering was combined with a Floquet expansion of the wave function for taking account of quanta exchanges between the electrons and the external radiation. With specific techniques to preserve numerical stability, this transfer-matrix formalism is well suited to compute the transmission of the field-emitted/photon-stimulated electrons between two electrodes. heory is applied to the computation of Fowler–Nordheim curves describing the photon-stimulated field emission of a tungsten plane emitter (described by z⩽0), which supports a nanometric protrusion and a dielectric coating. The extraction bias ranges from 12 to 24 V, for an inter-electrode distance of 4 nm. The electromagnetic radiation has a wavelength of 0.67 μm and a power flux density ranging from 5.96×1010 to 5.96×1012 W/m2. The effects due to the protrusion and the dielectric coating are studied. These theoretical results are compared with the experimental data.