Theory of ballistic electron emission microscopy with constant current feedback

Abstract

A theory of ballistic electron emission microscopy is presented that incorporates constant tunnel current feedback and models the band structure and space charge effects on the electron transmission. The computation is beyond the effective mass approximation but short of being from first principles. We compare theory and experimental Au/GaAs(001) dI/dV data and find that the L point does not contribute to an observable threshold and that the corresponding experimental feature is due to band structure effects.