Thermionic-field emission through silicon Schottky barriers at room temperature

Current transport via thermionic-field emission through Ni-Si diodes having implanted surface layers has been studied for surface fields between 10 ⁷ and 10 ⁸ V m ^-1. The well defined potential profile in these structures enables a close comparison to be made between the calculated and measured thermionic-field emission currents and it is shown that the change of reverse current with field can be accurately predicted using the appropriate electron effective mass in the direction of current flow. For typical barrier heights, the field dependence of the electron current through a triangular barrier with image force correction is very nearly exponential with an effective tunnelling distance between 25 and 30 Å at 300K.