In field electron emission from pointed structures in a cluster or in an array, electrostatic depolarization due to neighboring emitters diminishes the local field enhancement factor (FEF). This effect can limit the maximum macroscopic emission current from devices. If emitters in a cluster are regularly spaced and uniformly tall, the local FEF will always present significantly larger values at the edges, making most of the cluster ineffective. In this work, we explore conducting emitters in a cluster that are not uniformly tall and numerically calculate the local electrostatic field and the macroscopic emitted current over classical emitter’s surfaces using the Murphy–Good emission model. Our results show the conditions to homogenize and, therefore, optimize the emission current extractable from the cluster.

中文翻译：

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从高度不均匀的发射体簇获得均匀的场发射电流

在簇或阵列中的尖头结构的场电子发射中，由于相邻发射器引起的静电去极化会降低局部场增强因子 (FEF)。这种效应可以限制器件的最大宏观发射电流。如果集群中的发射器有规律地间隔且高度一致，则局部 FEF 将始终在边缘呈现明显更大的值，从而使大部分集群无效。在这项工作中，我们探索了一个簇中的导电发射器，这些发射器的高度不一致，并使用 Murphy–Good 发射模型数值计算了经典发射器表面上的局部静电场和宏观发射电流。我们的结果显示了均匀化的条件，因此优化了可从簇中提取的发射电流。