Electron emission from ultralarge area metal-oxide-semiconductor electron emitters

Abstract

Articles you may be interested inThe effects of the in-plane momentum on the quantization of nanometer metal-oxide-semiconductor devices due to the difference between the effective masses of silicon and gate oxide Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 123519 (2007); 10.1063/1.2789733 Polysilicon metal-insulator-semiconductor electron emitter Determination of electron trap distribution in the gate-oxide region of the deep submicron metal-oxide-semiconductor structure from direct tunneling gate current Effective lifetime of electrons trapped in the oxide of a metal-oxide-semiconductor structure Appl. Phys. Lett. 75, 522 (1999); 10.1063/1.124435Hot electron impact excitation cross-section of Er 3+ and electroluminescence from erbium-implanted silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor tunnel diodes Ultralarge metal-oxide-semiconductor ͑MOS͒ devices with an active oxide area of 1 cm 2 have been fabricated for use as electron emitters. The MOS structures consist of a Si substrate, a SiO 2 tunnel barrier ͑ϳ5 nm͒, a Ti wetting layer ͑3-10 Å͒, and a Au top layer ͑5-60 nm͒. Electron emission from the Au metal layer to vacuum is realized from these devices by applying bias voltages larger than the work function of the Au layer. The emission is characterized for Au layers with thicknesses ranging from 5 to 60 nm nominally. The emission efficiency changes from close to 10 −6 to 10 −10 . The Ti wetting layer is varied from 3 to 10 Å which changes the emission efficiency by more than one order of magnitude. The apparent mean free path of ϳ5 eV electrons in Au is found to be 52 Å. Deposition of Cs on the Au film increased the electron emission efficiency to 4.3% at 4 V by lowering the work function. Electron emission under high pressures ͑up to 2 bars͒ of Ar was observed.

Low-Field Electron Emission Capability of Thin Films on Flat Silicon Substrates: Experiments with Mo and General Model for Refractory Metals and Carbon

“…At this point, we can find an obvious analogy between our results and the literature data on current-induced emission from islet films [27][28][29][30] and from MIM/MOS sandwich films [18][19][20]. In those works, effective and stable emission also appeared only after electroforming procedures, and the emission sites were identified with film features or defects produced by the electroforming.…”

“…If its thickness is of the order of the electron scattering length or less, then a fraction of these high-energy electrons can travel to the vacuum boundary and be emitted. Results of early experiments did not seem very promising; the emission efficiency (ratio of emission current to full current through the system) was below 1% [16][17][18][19], the emission current was often unstable and nonuniformly distributed over the cathode area [17][18][19], it reached maximum values only after "forming" events resulting in the appearance of "defect channels" across the insulator film [18][19][20], and the best parameters were obtained with highly defective or even discontinuous metal top electrodes [20]. Thurstans and Oxley in their paper [21] identified the processes that occurred in those experiments as tunneling conduction through chains of metal islands produced in the insulator during the forming process and electron emission from the chain ends.…”

Photosensitive Metal–Insulator–Semiconductor Devices with Stepped Insulating Layer

“…The localized investigation of internal photoemission presented here is also applicable to MIS devices with stepped oxide layers accomplished by other methods such as thermal oxidation and etching. [29][30][31] …”