Space-charge effects and current self-quenching in a metal/CdS/LaS cold cathode

Abstract

We analyze the importance of space-charge effects in the cathode to anode gap region of a recently proposed metal/CdS(cadmium sulfide)/LaS(lanthanum sulfide) cold cathode. Our approach is based on an ensemble Monte Carlo description of electron transport assuming ballistic injection across the CdS and LaS layers. Under this approximation, the energy spectrum of the injected beam entering the air gap can be determined exactly as a function of the applied bias across the CdS layer. The effects of shot noise in the injected current are taken into account. For some of the biasing conditions considered here, space-charge effects are quite drastic and lead to dynamical effects which are responsible for the onset of current self-quenching similar to the Child–Langmuir regime of operation of thermionic cathodes. The limiting anode current density is found to be much larger than the Child–Langmuir limit. In the presence of strong space-charge effects, large oscillations in the minimum of the electrostatic potential in front of the cathode lead to oscillations in the measured anode current within the tens of GHz frequency range.