Speaker
Description
Electron emission from nanometric emitters becomes increasingly interesting due to its involvement to vacuum breakdown phenomena and various other vacuum nanoelectronics applications. The most commonly used theoretical tool for the calculation of electron emission is still nowadays the Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) equation, although it has been shown that it is inadequate for nanometrically sharp emitters or in the intermediate thermal-field regime. We have recently developed a general computational method [1] (and corresponding code named GETELEC) for the calculation of emission currents and Nottingham heat from sharp metallic protrusions. GETELEC is combined with a modified version of the existing Molecular Dynamics - Finite Differences Method (MD-FDM) code HELMOD and the recently developed Finite Elements Method (FEM) code FEMOCS into a complete simulation tool that combines MD, electrostatics, heat diffusion and electron emission calculations. We use this tool to simulate the thermal and shape evolution of Cu nanotips of various shapes under strong electric fields and determine the conditions under which the tips can evaporate. We find that their behaviour predicted by the new model is significantly different from the one obtained by previous models using the F-N equation and neglecting the Nottingham effect.
[1] A. Kyritsakis and F. Djurabekova, Computational Materials Science 128, 15 (2017).
| session | Field Emission |
|---|---|
| Type of contribution | Oral |
