Coulomb blockade of field emission from nanoscale conductors

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical model explaining how Coulomb blockade causes step-like increases in electron field emission current from nanoscale conductors, with detailed analysis for nanoclusters and nanowires.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for Coulomb blockade effects in field emission from nanoscale objects, highlighting step-like current behavior due to single-electron charging.

Findings

Field emission current exhibits step-like increases due to Coulomb blockade.

Charging effects cause abrupt changes in the effective electric field.

Detailed current-voltage characteristics are provided for nanoclusters and nanowires.

Abstract

Theoretical description of the field emission of electrons from nanoscale objects weakly coupled to the cathode is presented. It is shown that the field- emission current increases in a step-like fashion due to single-electron charging which leads to abrupt changes of the effective electric field responsible for the field emission. A detailed consideration of the current-voltage characteristics is carried out for a nanocluster modelled by a metallic spherical particle in the close vicinity of the cathode and for a cylindrical silicon nanowire grown on the cathode surface.