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The possibility of high frequency electromagnetic wave generation by field emission based devices has great interest. The wide bandgap materials GaN and AlGaN are very promising for these applications due to low electron affinity and the existence of satellite valleys in conduction band. The results of investigations of the peculiarities of electron field emission from nanostructured surfaces of GaN and AlGaN are presented. Multilayer GaN and AlGaN structures with various levels of layer doping on sapphire and bulk GaN substrates were used as initial wafers. The surface of the upper layers was nanostructured by photoelectrochemical etching in water solution of KOH. Intensive electron field emission into vacuum was observed and explained by low electron affinity and electric field enhancement on surface nanowires. A decrease of the slope in the Fowler‐Nordheim characteristics was revealed. The changing slope suggests a lowering of effective work function. It is caused by electron heating and transfer into an upper satellite valley with lower electron affinity. A theory was developed for the observed phenomena and interpretation of results. It is baseed on electron intervalley transition upon heating and on energy band reconstruction of the surface of the nanowires due to quantum size‐confinement effect. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

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