The field enhancement factor at the emitter tip and its variation in a close neighbourhood determines the emitter current in a Fowler-Nordheim like formulation. For an axially symmetric emitter with a smooth tip, it is shown that the variation can be accounted by a $\cos{ \tilde{ \theta}}$ factor in appropriately defined normalized co-ordinates. This is shown analytically for a hemi-ellipsoidal emitter and confirmed numerically for other emitter shapes with locally quadratic tips.
Categories: physics.app-ph