We report that a scanning tunneling microscope induced photocurrent (STM–PC) can occur during ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM) measurements on Schottky-barrier samples with typical efficiency of and apparent BEEM threshold slightly above the substrate semiconductor band gap. This STM–PC resembles normal BEEM current, and hence, can interfere with BEEM measurements of structures with intrinsically low signal and/or intrinsic BEEM threshold voltage larger than the substrate band gap. We discuss a simple test for the existence of STM–PC during BEEM measurements.
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