Thermo-enhanced field electron emission by bandto-ban tunneling from p-Si/ZnO nano-emitters

We fabricated full array of uniform individual pSi/ZnO nano-emitters and demonstrated the strong thermoenhanced field emission. The emission current density showed about ten-time enhancement (from 1.31 to 12.11 mA/cm
²
at 60.6 MV/m) by increasing the temperature from 323 K to 623 K. The strong thermo-enhancement was proposed to be benefit from the increase of band-to-band tunneling probability at the surface portion of the p-Si/ZnO nano-junction. This work provides promising cathode for portable x-ray tubes/panel, ionization vacuum gauges and low energy electron beam lithography, in where electron-dose control at a fixed energy is needed.