Monte Carlo study of the ion-induced electron current tunneling through a metal-insulator-metal junction

A Monte Carlo program is developed to investigate the kinetically excited electrons passing through a realistic Ag-Al2O3-Al junction when Ar+ ions impact on the top Ag layer. The program includes excitation of the target electrons (by projectile ions, recoiling target atoms and fast primary electrons) and subsequent transport of these excited electrons from Ag to bottom Al layer of the metal-insulator-metal (MIM) junction. The calculated tunneling electron yield is consistent with the recently reported experimental results. The simulation, however, enables the calculation of partial tunneling electron yields of the electrons excited by the projectile ions, recoil atoms and cascade electrons, the depth distribution of the electron excitation points in the MIM junction and energy distribution of the tunneling electrons. Our calculation showed that the electrons excited by fast cascade electrons are the major contributor to the tunneling electron yield while the direct contribution of projectile ions to tunneling electron yield is evident only at the projectile energies greater than 10 keV. The tunneling electrons have their origin close to the bottom end of the Ag layer and bulk of the tunneling electrons have energies around 2 eV. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.