ELECTRON-EMISSION FROM MIM SYSTEMS AND DISCONTINUOUS METAL-FILMS

The review reports results of experimental and theoretical study of electrical properties, especially electron emission from both sandwich (MIM cathodes) and planar (discontinuous metal films) metal-insulator metal systems. Experimental dependencies-I-V characteristics of leakage and emission current, distributions of emitted electrons before and after the forming process-are summed up. Some attention is devoted to various hypotheses about the physical processes which take part during the electron emission from sandwich and planar MIM systems.