The density of the energy spectrum of an electron in the image field and blocking electric field

In the semiclassical approximation, the density of the electron energy spectrum near the metal surface is described, when electron is bound by the image field and the blocking electrostatic field. In the system under consideration, the confinement mechanism is realized, and the energy spectrum for the motion of an electron in the direction perpendicular to the metal surface is completely discrete. The density of states of the energy spectrum is expressed in terms of elliptic integrals, the argument of which is a sigmoidal function. When the field is turned off, it becomes the Heaviside step function. A dimensionless energy parameter is introduced, which determines the intervals with qualitatively different changes in the width of the classically accessible region of motion. For large positive values of the energy parameter, the spectrum density asymptotically tends to the density in the triangular potential with the addition of the Coulomb logarithmic correction, and for negative values of the energy parameter, the spectrum density tends to dependence for a one-dimensional Coulomb potential. Approximate expressions are obtained for the spectrum density in terms of elementary functions in a wide range of electron energies and electric field strength.