Poole–Frenkel effect

In solid-state physics, the Poole–Frenkel effect (also known as Frenkel-Poole emission) is a model describing the mechanism of trap-assisted electron transport in an electrical insulator. It is named after Yakov Frenkel, who published on it in 1938, extending the theory previously developed by H. H. Poole.

Electrons can move slowly through an insulator by the following process. The electrons are generally trapped in localized states (loosely speaking, they are "stuck" to a single atom, and not free to move around the crystal). Occasionally, random thermal fluctuations will give an electron enough energy to leave its localized state, and move to the conduction band. Once there, the electron can move through the crystal, for a brief amount of time, before relaxing into another localized state (in other words, "sticking" to a different atom). The Poole–Frenkel effect describes how, in a large electric field, the electron doesn't need as much thermal energy to be promoted into the conduction band (because part of this energy comes from being pulled by the electric field), so it does not need as large a thermal fluctuation and will be able to move more frequently. On theoretical grounds, the Poole–Frenkel effect is comparable to the Schottky effect, which is the lowering of the metal-insulator energy barrier due to the electrostatic interaction with the electric field at a metal-insulator interface. However, the conductivity arising from the Poole–Frenkel effect is detected in presence of bulk-limited conduction (when the limiting conduction process occurs in the bulk of a material), while the Schottky current is observed when the conductivity is contact-limited (when the limiting conduction mechanism occurs at the metal-insulator interface).