Measurement of Field Emission Property on the Individual Silicon Nanowire by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) array are expected to be a promising cathode in field emission devices. We report field emission (FE) characteristic on individual SiNW apex by using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) operated in field emission mode at room temperature in ultrahigh vacuum condition. The result revealed the SiNWS has good emission characteristic. In addition, we verified the FN theory was also applicable in micro-scale field emission process through numerical value simulation of the field emission process