Gamow factors and current densities in cold field emission theory: a comparative study

Abstract

The factors that contribute to the accuracy of the cold field emission current within the contemporary frameworks are investigated. It is found that so long as the net current is evaluated using an expression for the local current density obtained by linearizing the Gamow factor, the primary source of error is the choice of the energy at which the Taylor expansion is done, but not as much on the choice of the method used to arrive at the approximate Gamow factor. A suitable choice of linearization energy and the implementation of the Kemble correction, allows the restriction of errors to below 3% across a wide range of local fields.