Effect of geometry and multiple-image interactions on tunneling and I-V characteristics of metal-vacuum-metal point-contact junctions

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Abstract
A Green’s function formalism has been used to obtain, for the first time, the exact multiple‐image interactions for a hyperboloidal‐tip–planar‐anode model of a metal‐whisker point‐contact diode. I‐V characteristics, including all image interactions, have been calculated for the point‐contact junction consisting of electrodes with identical metals. These are compared with results for the parallel‐plane diode model with exact and appropriate forms of the image barrier. In contrast to the case of the parallel‐plane diode of identical metals, rectification is predicted for the point‐contact diode. Significant differences between the calculated I‐V curves are found to be a consequence of the different geometries and approximations for the image interactions.