Field emission from conducting nanofibers has a significant importance due to its possible application in electronics like flat panel displays, x-ray machines, sensors, etc.The standard theoretical model describing field emission is the Fowler-Nordheim model, which is valid for bulk material, constant applied electric field and zero temperature. A more general theoretical model is required in the realistic cases of arbitrary electromagnetic fields and arbitrary but finite temperature.
This work presents an asymptotic procedure for calculating field emission from nanofibers of finite length
for static and dynamic fields at arbitrary finite temperature.
It investigates the behavior of a nanofiber in the presence of electrostatic and EM fields.
The resultant field potentials outside the system are obtained by employing the slender-body
approximation. The total external potential is used in conjunction with the
the Wentzel-Krammers-Brillouin approximation to estimate the tunneling
probability of the electrons in the fiber due the total
external field. Unlike the standard Fowler-Nordheim method, the current density of
the field emission is obtained by using quantum wire density of states.
In addition, this work investigates
radiative and scattering properties of conducting nanofibers for the purpose of nanoantenna applications . The results for the distributions of the induced currents are compared to the results from the solution of Hallen's integral equation and the corresponding radiation patterns are compared.
The results are extended for the case of a broadside uniform array of N aligned fibers.