Electron emission noise

Traced back to the early discoveries by Schottky and Johnson, a review will be given on the present state of electron emission noise phenomena and related fluctuations. Special emphasis is laid upon adsorbate induced noise under UHV conditions which can be investigated, at least in principle, down to single adparticle fluctuations. On the other hand, with increasing submonolayer coverage, adparticle interactions can play an important role which might even lead to collective phenomena. Different noise sources and models to describe them will be discussed. The examples for illustration are mainly taken from field emission investigations and will cover shot noise, prediffusion adparticle flip-flop, Brownian motion or concentration fluctuations in a patch, tunneling diffusion, trap and surface state governed emission noise and indications of phase transitions and soliton or domain wall movements. Some relations to current noise in solid state devices and to other noise sources and their characteristics will be mentioned.