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Title: Tip-geometry enhanced cooling of field emission from the n-type semiconductor

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4866339· OSTI ID:22293110
 [1];  [2]; ;  [3]
  1. Department of Physics, University of Ulsan, Ulsan 680-749 (Korea, Republic of)
  2. FUNDP, University of Namur, Rue de Bruxelles 61, B-5000 Namur (Belgium)
  3. Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 (United States)

The cooling effect of field emission from an n-type semiconductor was theoretically investigated in quest for a solid state cooler. The vacuum potential was exactly expressed in terms of the semiconductor cathode geometry. This leaded to the more accurate configuration-dependent calculations of the energy exchange and the cooling power. It has been shown that a sharper tip of semiconductor can yield either a larger field emission current density or a larger energy exchange, according to the applied bias. For an atomic size tip, the n-Si cathode yielded the cooling power density Γ = 2.0, 75, and 713 W/cm{sup 2} at temperature T = 300, 600, and 900 K, respectively. This implies that an optimized configuration of an n-Si cathode produces a significant electron emission cooling, especially at high temperatures.

OSTI ID:
22293110
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 8; Other Information: (c) 2014 Author(s); Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English