VACUUM EMISSION OF HOT AND BALLISTIC ELECTRONS FROM GAAS

Intrinsic GaAs layers of 1 and 3 mu m thickness on a highly doped n(+)-substrate, were covered with very thin Au layers (10 nm) in order to manufacture planar field emission cathodes. At nearly the tenfold Gun n field of about 50 kV/cm we observe the beginning of hot and ballisti c electron emission into vacuum. The energy distributions span several eV, exceeding even 10 eV for thick samples. We have started to descri be this high energy transport by means of Monte Carlo calculations inc luding acoustic and optical phonon interaction of electrons, intervall ey scattering, and impact ionization of valence band electrons. In ear lier work we have done vacuum emission experiments, electron beam indu ced conductivity and Monte Carlo calculations to examine and analyze h igh field transport in ZnS and SiO2. (C) 1996 American Vacuum Society.