Quasi-ideal current saturation in field emission and surface effect studies of individual hydrogen-passivated Si nanowires

Silicon Nanowires (SiNWs) are being studied for a wide variety of applications in nanoscience with significant progress in their integration into devices such as transistors, solar cells, photodectors, chemical sensors, etc.. However there has been much less work on field emission (FE) even though their semiconducting properties open distinct possibilities compared to metallic emitters and carbon nanotubes. The few measurements in the literature for SiNW arrays have only shown linear Fowler-Nordheim (FN) behavior as for metallic emitters. In addition to strong current saturation in FE due to the band-gap, their properties could be strongly influenced by surface states because of their large surface-to-volume ratio. As a consequence, there is a clear need for in-depth FE studies of individual NWs in order to understand surface effects and optimize FE characteristics.