Regular Article

Theory of field emission

School of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Material and Technology, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, P.R. China

^a e-mail: stslsd@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Received: 17 March 2018
Received in final form: 1 May 2018
Published online: 3 August 2018

Abstract

A serious barrier impedes the comparison between the theoretical prediction and the experimental observation in field emission because there is no way to measure the emission area. We introduce three dimensionless variables ℛ_J, 𝒮 and 𝒟 to construct a formulation for connecting directly the theoretical variables and experimental data without measuring the emission area. Based on this formulation we can analyze that the behaviors of ℛ_J, 𝒮 and 𝒟 with the voltages between the anode and the emitter to reveals the characteristics of current–voltage (I–V) curve and detect the physical properties of emitters. This formulation provides a way to understand the fundamental physics of I–V curve in field emission and to set up a map between the physical properties of emitters and the experimental I–V curve.