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The Energy Distribution of Field‐Emitted Electrons from GaAs
Author(s) -
Hughes O. H.,
White P. M.
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.19690330129
Subject(s) - electron , field electron emission , atomic physics , quasi fermi level , valence band , fermi level , conduction band , band gap , surface states , density of states , condensed matter physics , materials science , energy distribution , surface (topology) , physics , nuclear physics , geometry , mathematics
Measurements of the energy distribution of field‐emitted electrons from clean GaAs surfaces indicate that the emission originates from the valence band. The distributions are found to be considerably wider than is predicted by theory despite the high resolution of the apparatus. The Fermi level at the surface of low‐resistivity n‐type material is found to be stabilized 0.54 eV below the conduction band edge indicating a high density of surface states. The surface state density is estimated to be greater than 2.8 × 10 13 cm −2 . Emission from within the forbidden gap is also reported.