NEW ELECTRON AND HOLE SPECTROSCOPIES BASED ON BALLISTIC ELECTRON-EMISSION MICROSCOPY

Ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM) is shown to be one of a class of carrier transport nanospectroscopies which measure both elastic and inelastic transport of electrons and holes in thin film structures. In BEEM, electrons are injected into a metal film from a tunnel tip and are collected in the substrate after ballistic transport through the film. An analogous spectroscopy can be performed using hole transport into a p-type semiconductor substrate. In the present work, it is shown that inelastic scattering in metal films results in electron-hole pair creation which can be detected by similar techniques. A theory for this spectroscopy successfully explains the experimental results.