Field Electron Emission from GaAs Nanowhiskers Fabricated by MBE

This paper investigated the electron emission properties of self-assembled GaAs nanowhiskers (NWs) grown by MBE which includes electron emission current, potential difference dependences in the vacuum gap between the probe tip and GaAs NWs surface. The analysis shows that the electron emission from the NWs nanostructure surface is the result of electron tunneling from the indicated above surfaces into the probe material. The question of barrier shape still remains open. Possible influence of size effects for GaAs NWs was not revealed. The estimates of the emission current density have shown that the current density is very high and equal to about 10
⁵
A/cm
²