Resonant field emission from noble-metal/graphene heterostructures

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Trushin, Maxim
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Trushin, Maxim
author_facet Trushin, Maxim
contents Field emission from metals underpinned early vacuum-tube technology, and recent nanoscale engineering made field-emission devices compatible with modern silicon platforms. However, the limited tunability of electron transport in metals has restricted their applicability. Here, we show that noble metals coated with graphene exhibit clean non-monotonic $I-V$ characteristics arising from resonant tunneling through graphene's electronic states, enabled by graphene's atomic thinness and weak electronic hybridization with noble metals. Our approach combines ab-initio interface parameters with exact solutions of the Schrödinger equation for electron transmission across the interface. We analyze two experimentally relevant geometries: a vertical configuration with a flat suspended emitter and a coplanar configuration with sharp electrodes allowing for strong field enhancement and gating. These results establish a practical route to tunable electron transport in metal heterostructures, positioning them as competitive components for air-channel field-emission nanoelectronics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_16997
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Resonant field emission from noble-metal/graphene heterostructures
Trushin, Maxim
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Materials Science
Applied Physics
Field emission from metals underpinned early vacuum-tube technology, and recent nanoscale engineering made field-emission devices compatible with modern silicon platforms. However, the limited tunability of electron transport in metals has restricted their applicability. Here, we show that noble metals coated with graphene exhibit clean non-monotonic $I-V$ characteristics arising from resonant tunneling through graphene's electronic states, enabled by graphene's atomic thinness and weak electronic hybridization with noble metals. Our approach combines ab-initio interface parameters with exact solutions of the Schrödinger equation for electron transmission across the interface. We analyze two experimentally relevant geometries: a vertical configuration with a flat suspended emitter and a coplanar configuration with sharp electrodes allowing for strong field enhancement and gating. These results establish a practical route to tunable electron transport in metal heterostructures, positioning them as competitive components for air-channel field-emission nanoelectronics.
title Resonant field emission from noble-metal/graphene heterostructures
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Materials Science
Applied Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16997