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Field emission (FE) (also known as field electron emission and electron field emission) is emission of electrons induced by an electrostatic field. The most common context is field emission from a solid surface into vacuum. However, field emission can take place from solid or liquid surfaces, into vacuum, air, a fluid, or any non-conducting or weakly conducting dielectric. The field-induced promotion of electrons from the valence to conduction band of semiconductors (the Zener effect) can also be regarded as a form of field emission. The terminology is historical because related phenomena of surface photoeffect, thermionic emission (or Richardson–Dushman effect) and "cold electronic emission", i.e. the emission of electrons in strong static (or quasi-static) electric fields, were discovered and studied independently from the 1880s to 1930s. When field emission is used without qualifiers it typically means "cold emission". Field emission in pure metals occurs in high electric fields: the gradients are typically higher than 1 gigavolt per metre and strongly dependent upon the work function. Electron sources based on field emission have a number of applications, but it is most commonly an undesirable primary source of vacuum breakdown and electrical discharge phenomena, which engineers work to prevent. Examples of applications for surface field emission include construction of bright electron sources for high-resolution electron microscopes or to discharge spacecraft from induced charges. Devices which eliminate induced charges are termed charge-neutralizers. Field emission was explained by quantum tunneling of electrons in the late 1920s. This was one of the triumphs of the nascent quantum mechanics. The theory of field emission from bulk metals was proposed by Ralph H. Fowler and Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim. A family of approximate equations, "Fowler–Nordheim equations", is named after them. Strictly, Fowler–Nordheim equations apply only to field emission from bulk metals and (with suitable modification) to other bulk crystalline solids, but they are often used – as a rough approximation – to describe field emission from other materials. In some respects, field electron emission is a paradigm example of what physicists mean by tunneling. Unfortunately, it is also a paradigm example of the intense mathematical difficulties that can arise. Simple solvable models of the tunneling barrier lead to equations (including the original 1928 Fowler–Nordheim-type equation) that get predictions of emission current density too low by a factor of 100 or more. If one inserts a more realistic barrier model into the simplest form of the Schrödinger equation, then an awkward mathematical problem arises over the resulting differential equation: it is known to be mathematically impossible in principle to solve this equation exactly in terms of the usual functions of mathematical physics, or in any simple way. To get even an approximate solution, it is necessary to use special approximate methods known in physics as "semi-classical" or "quasi-classical" methods. Worse, a mathematical error was made in the original application of these methods to field emission, and even the corrected theory that was put in place in the 1950s has been formally incomplete until very recently. A consequence of these (and other) difficulties has been a heritage of misunderstanding and disinformation that still persists in some current field emission research literature. This article tries to present a basic account of field emission "for the 21st century and beyond" that is free from these confusions. ==Terminology and conventions== ''Field electron emission'', ''field-induced electron emission'', ''field emission'' and ''electron field emission'' are general names for this experimental phenomenon and its theory. The first name is used here. ''Fowler–Nordheim tunneling'' is the wave-mechanical tunneling of electrons through a rounded triangular barrier created at the surface of an electron conductor by applying a very high electric field. Individual electrons can escape by Fowler-Nordheim tunneling from many materials in various different circumstances. ''Cold field electron emission'' (CFE) is the name given to a particular statistical emission regime, in which the electrons in the emitter are initially in internal thermodynamic equilibrium, and in which most emitted electrons escape by Fowler-Nordheim tunneling from electron states close to the emitter Fermi level. (contrast, in the Schottky emission regime, most electrons escape over the top of a field-reduced barrier, from states well above the Fermi level. ) Many solid and liquid materials can emit electrons in a CFE regime if an electric field of an appropriate size is applied. ''Fowler–Nordheim-type equations'' are a family of approximate equations derived to describe CFE from the internal electron states in bulk metals. The different members of the family represent different degrees of approximation to reality. Approximate equations are necessary because, for physically realistic models of the tunneling barrier, it is mathematically impossible in principle to solve the Schrödinger equation exactly in any simple way. There is no theoretical reason to believe that Fowler-Nordheim-type equations validly describe field emission from materials other than bulk crystalline solids. For metals, the CFE regime extends to well above room temperature. There are other electron emission regimes (such as "thermal electron emission" and "Schottky emission") that require significant external heating of the emitter. There are also emission regimes where the internal electrons are not in thermodynamic equilibrium and the emission current is, partly or completely, determined by the supply of electrons to the emitting region. A non-equilibrium emission process of this kind may be called field (electron) emission if most of the electrons escape by tunneling, but strictly it is not CFE, and is not accurately described by a Fowler-Nordheim-type equation. Care is necessary because in some contexts (e.g. spacecraft engineering), the name "field emission" is applied to the field-induced emission of ions (field ion emission), rather than electrons, and because in some theoretical contexts "field emission" is used as a general name covering both field electron emission and field ion emission. Historically, the phenomenon of field electron emission has been known by a variety of names, including "the aeona effect", "autoelectronic emission", "cold emission", "cold cathode emission", "field emission", "field electron emission" and "electron field emission". Equations in this article are written using the International System of Quantities (ISQ). This is the modern (post-1970s) international system, based around the rationalized-meter-kilogram-second (rmks) system of equations, which is used to define SI units. Older field emission literature (and papers that directly copy equations from old literature) often write some equations using an older equation system that does not use the quantity ''ε''0. In this article, all such equations have been converted to modern international form. For clarity, this should always be done. Since work function is normally given in electronvolts (eV), and it is often convenient to measure fields in volts per nanometer (V/nm), values of most universal constants are given here in units involving the eV, V and nm. Increasingly, this is normal practice in field emission research. However, all equations here are ISQ-compatible equations and remain dimensionally consistent, as is required by the modern international system. To indicate their status, numerical values of universal constants are given to seven significant figures. Values are derived using the 2006 values of the fundamental constants. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Field electron emission」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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