of Research of the National Bureau of Standards Room Temperature Gold - Vacuum - Gold Tunneling Experiments

An experiment has been completed which demonstrated quantum mechanical tunneling of electrons between two gold electrodes separated in vacuum. The tunneling current between the gold electrodes has been measured, for fixed voltages of 0.1 and 0.01 volts, as the electrode spacing was varied from a distance of approximately 2.0 nm down to a point where the electrodes touched. Current changes of over five orders of magnitude were found for electrode spacing changes of approximately 1.2 nm. For the first time, these data enable one to deduce the work function of the electrodes in a tunneling experiment from experimental parameters independent of the tunneling device. Also obtained were current-voltage characteristics for fixed electrode spacings in the direct tunneling region where electrode spacings were less than 2.0 nm. An analysis is given which attempts to deduce an absolute electrode spacing and tunneling area from the nonlinear properties of the I-V data and the curJuly-August 1986