GETELEC: thermal-field electron emission calculations in Python

What GETELEC does

GETELEC calculates electron emission from metallic and semiconducting emitters: the current density, the Nottingham heat and the total and normal energy distributions. It covers field emission, thermionic emission and the thermal-field regime between them, where neither limiting formula works.

The transmission through the surface barrier is obtained by solving the one-dimensional Schrödinger equation with Noumerov's method, for a planar barrier, a sharp tip, a triangular barrier or a potential of your own. GETELEC is a Python package, getelec, and an application for Windows that needs no Python, which also fits measured I-V, I-T and energy-distribution data.

Install and run

pip install getelec

import getelec

getelec.current_density(field=5.0)   # A/cm^2
getelec.nottingham_heat(field=5.0)   # W/cm^2

Fields in V/nm, energies in eV, temperatures in K.

Without Python: download GETELEC-windows.zip, extract it and double-click GETELEC.exe. Step-by-step instructions for both are in INSTALL.md.

Documentation

Introduction
What GETELEC is and how an emitter is assembled from its four components.
Usage guide
The physics, each module, choosing a solver, checking the accuracy, units.
API reference
Every class and function, from the docstrings.
Introduction notebook
Worked examples, from a one-line current density to fitting measured data.

How to cite

If you use GETELEC, please cite the software,

S. Barranco Cárceles, A. Kyritsakis and A. Ayari, GETELEC: General Tool for Electron Emission Calculations, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.23093209

and the papers:

A. Kyritsakis and F. Djurabekova, Comput. Mater. Sci. 128, 15 (2017), doi:10.1016/j.commatsci.2016.11.010
S. Barranco Cárceles, V. Zadin, A. Mavalankar, I. Underwood and A. Kyritsakis, J. Appl. Phys. 138, 155705 (2025), doi:10.1063/5.0284808
S. Barranco Cárceles, A. Kyritsakis and A. Ayari, arXiv:2610.07013 (2026), doi:10.48550/arXiv.2610.07013

The software DOI covers every version and resolves to the latest one.

Get GETELEC

Source code, issues and releases: github.com/sbcarceles13/GETELEC
Python package: pypi.org/project/getelec
What changed in each version: CHANGES.md
Earlier versions, GETELEC 1.0 and 2.0: GETELEC_legacy

GETELEC is distributed under the MIT licence.