Tunneling Versus Thermionic Emission in One-Dimensional Semiconductors

The mechanism of charge injection from a three-dimensional metal electrode into a one-dimensional semiconductor was studied. The importance of effective mass was identified by the evaluation of the experimental data on boron nitride and carbon based nanotube transistors. The transition between thermal emission and tunneling in one-dimensional structures was discussed. An approach to quantify the barrier height in metal/semiconductor nanostructures was proposed and demonstrated.