Testing the performance of Murphy-Good plots when applied to current-voltage characteristics of Si field electron emission tips

Murphy-Good plots are the most recent type of the analysis methods in the field electron emission theory, this type of plots has several useful characteristics such as: having the very-nearly straight line to represent the current-voltage characteristics and the absence of the correction factors in the mathematical procedure of the analysis process. In this study, n-type <111> and <100> Si chips containing four individual emitters are used as base emitters and mounted in a diode configuration field emission setup where the experiments are operated in an ultra-high vacuum (~10
^-7
Pa). Each chip has four individual controllable emitters with 5 µm distance between the Si tips and the same material grid. Laser micromachining and subsequent wet chemical etching technique is used to structure and polish the tips. Murphy-Good plots are used to study the behavior of the Si individual tips and compare the results with the array current by extracting the field emission characterization parameters of the emitters.