Photoelectric Determination of the Image Force Dielectric Constant For Hot Electrons in Schottky Barriers

Photoelectric measurements of the bias dependence of the potential energy barrier for electrons in gold n‐type silicon Schottky diodes show that the image force dielectric constant deduced from direct measurement of the barrier lowering is 12.0±0.5, in close agreement with the infrared dielectric constant of silicion, and independent of the applied field for fields between 104 and 2×105 V/cm. The current‐voltage characteristics of these diodes at room temperature cannot be explained on the basis of pure Schottky emission.