COOLING BY INVERSE NOTTINGHAM EFFECT WITH RESONANT TUNNELING

Abstract

The Inverse Nottingham Effect (INE) cooling involves emission of electrons above the Fermi level into the vacuum. Our scheme involves the use of a Double Barrier Resonant Tunneling (DBRT) section positioned between the surface and the vacuum for a much increased emission, and to provide energy selectivity for assuring cooling, without surface structuring such as tips and ridges leading to current crowding and additional heating. Unlike resonant tunneling from contact-to-contact, where barrier heights and thicknesses are controlled by the choice of heterojunctions, the work function at the surface dictates the barrier height for tunneling into the vacuum. The calculated field emission via resonant tunneling gives at least two orders of magnitude greater than without resonance, however, without work function lowering, the large gain happens at fairly high field. The use of resonance to enhance cooling by INE results in an important byproduct, an efficient cold-cathode field emitter for vacuum electronics.