Thermionic field emission of electrons from the paraboloidal metal micropoint

Abstract

The problem of determining the emission current as a function of voltage, radius of the micropoint curvature, and the distance between the micropoint and a conducting plane is considered on the basis of the theoretical method developed for determining the electric field in the vicinity of a paraboloidal micropoint near a plane metal surface. The universal current–voltage characteristics for a copper micropoint, which are considered for various distances between the micropoint and the plane, can be used for obtaining quantitative estimates of currents in various physics problems.