Monochromatic electron emission from graphene–insulator–semiconductor-structured electron source utilizing interference effects

Abstract The graphene–insulator–semiconductor-structured electron source has garnered significant attention due to its high electron emission efficiency and highly monochromatic electron emission. Graphene, with its c -axis orientation and well-defined interlayer spacing, exhibits electron interference effects that can influence the properties of emitted electrons. In this work, the motion of an electron wave packet is numerically calculated to discuss the energy spread of the zero-order and first-order diffracted electron waves by mono- and multilayer graphene. It is found that the effects of multiple reflections of electrons between the layers broaden the energy spread, especially for the incident energy of 13.4 eV, and that highly monochromatic electron emission can be achieved by using diffracted electron waves with a small aperture.