Numerical determination of field emission performance of GaN nanowire arrays

Abstract

Determining the field emission turn-on field of the GaN nanowire array can better adapt to the application of field-assisted photocathode. A numerical simulation of the field emission behavior based on the finite difference method is proposed. Considering the influence of nanowire radius, height, cathode-anode spacing and interwire spacing on the field emission of GaN nanowires. The simulation proves that field enhancement factor of a single GaN nanowire is the most excellent, while emission electrons is relatively small. When GaN nanowires have a larger aspect ratio, it will have a larger enhancement factor and a small required turn-on electric field. Due to an enhanced field shielding, the enhancement factor of the GaN nanowire array reduces as interwire spacing reduces. Cathode-anode spacing hardly influences enhancement factor of GaN nanowire array, while potential distributions are affected by cathode-anode spacing to a certain extent.