Computer simulation of internal electron emission in ion-bombarded metals

We present a computer simulation study of internal electron emission in ion-bombarded metal-insulator-metal (MIM) junctions. The computational approach consists of (i) a molecular dynamics part describing the particle kinetics upon projectile impact, (ii) the computation of kinetic electronic excitation as well as its transport and (iii) a thermionic model to calculate the flux of electrons from the top electrode to the bottom electrode of the MIM. The results are compared to recent experiments and discussed in terms of different transport models for the description of hot electron propagation in metals.