Field emission properties of self-assembled silicon nanostructures on n- and p-type silicon

Abstract

This letter considers field emission from self-assembled silicon nanostructure arrays fabricated on n- and p-type silicon (100) substrates using electron beam rapid thermal annealing. Arrays of nanostructures with an average height of 8 nm were formed by substrate annealing at 1100 °C for 15 s. Following conditioning, the Si nanostructure field emission characteristics become stable and reproducible with Fowler–Nordheim tunneling occurring for fields as low as 2Vμm−1. At higher fields, current saturation effects are observed for both n-type and p-type samples. These studies suggest that the mechanism influencing current saturation at high fields acts independently of substrate conduction type.