High‐Performance On‐Chip Electron Sources Based on Electroformed Silicon Oxide

Nanoscale air channel transistors (NACTs) have received significant attention due to their remarkable high‐frequency performance and high switching speed, which is enabled by the ballistic transport of electrons in sub‐100 nm air channels. Despite these advantages, NACTs are still limited by low currents and instability compared to solid‐state devices. GaN, with its low electron affinity, strong thermal and chemical stability, and high breakdown electric field, presents an appealing candidate as a field emission material. Here, a vertical GaN nanoscale air channel diode (NACD) with a 50 nm air channel is reported, fabricated by low‐cost IC‐compatible manufacturing technologies on a 2‐inch sapphire wafer. The device boasts a record field emission current of 11 mA at 10 V in the air and exhibits outstanding stability during cyclic, long‐term, and pulsed voltage testing. Additionally, it displays fast switching characteristics and good repeatability with a response time of fewer than 10 ns. Moreover, the temperature‐dependent performance of the device can guide the design of GaN NACTs for applications in extreme conditions. The research holds great promise for large current NACTs and will speed up their practical implementation.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/advs.202206385

Fast Response GaN Nanoscale Air Channel Diodes with Highly Stable 10 mA Output Current toward Wafer‐Scale Fabrication

A miniature ionization vacuum sensor (IVS) based on an on-chip SiOx-based tunneling electron source is reported. The vacuum sensor fabricated by microfabrication technologies exhibits a compact multilayered structure with overall dimensions of $13\times 9\times2.7$ mm3, where the electron source chip, Si layer of the electron collector, Si layer of the ion collector, and glass spacers between them are stacked together by an anodic bonding method. Electron impact ionization occurs in a semiclosed cavity through the electron and ion collector layers and glass spacers. Because of the compact structure, low working voltage of SiOx-based tunneling electron sources, and stable electron emission of the electron sources in a poor vacuum, a wide linear detection range from $1.3\times 10^{-2}$ to 133 Pa and a sensitivity of $8.3\times 10^{-4}$ Pa−1 have been demonstrated for the devices. These advantages, including miniature size, a detection range up to the rough vacuum regime, and the capability of batch fabrication with microfabrication technologies, make our IVSs promising in vacuum measurements.

A Miniature Ionization Vacuum Sensor With a SiOₓ-Based Tunneling Electron Source

On‐chip electron sources with low pressure‐sensitivity and outstanding emission performances under rough vacuum are highly desired for developing miniature fully encapsulated vacuum electronic devices. Here, the sensitivity of electron emission from SiOx tunneling diodes formed in electroformed SiOx to the variation of ambient vacuum pressure from ≈10−4 to ≈102 Pa is explored. Electron emission from SiOx tunneling diodes is found to be insensitive to pressure variation when the pressure is lower than ≈10−1 Pa and exhibits fast degradation above the pressure, showing much lower pressure sensitivity than field emission sources. Despite emission current degradation above ≈10−1 Pa, SiOx tunneling diodes exhibit stable and reproducible electron emission under fixed rough vacuum up to 8 Pa, and good restorability after being repeatedly exposed to air pressure. By analyzing transport current of SiOx tunneling diodes under varying ambient vacuum pressure, the degradation of emission current above ≈10−1 Pa is attributed to the widening of insulating SiOx channel in the diode due to the transformation of Si conducting filament to SiOx with increasing oxygen partial pressure.

Pressure Sensitivity of Electron Emission from SiOx Tunneling Diodes and their Outstanding Emission Performance under Rough Vacuum

Uniform electron emission (EE) from on-chip micro-emitter arrays based on SiOx tunneling diodes (STDs) in electroformed SiOx is reported. EE from STDs is found to be accompanied with visible light emission, which enables us to resolve the spatial distribution of EE from the micro-emitter arrays and emitter-to-emitter uniformity at the microscale resolution via optical imaging. Up to 99% micro-emitters in a 15 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times15$ </tex-math></inline-formula> array is observed to work simultaneously with good emitter-to-emitter uniformity, showing an emission current of 0.56 mA and an emission density of 626 mA/cm2. The good uniformity is attributed to the insensitivity of EE from STDs to the microfabricated structures of micro-emitters.

SiOx Tunneling Diode Arrays With Uniform Electron Emission

Electrically driven on-chip electron sources that do not need to be heated have been long pursued because the current thermionic electron sources show the problems of high power consumption, slow temporal response, bulky size, etc., but their realization remains challenging. Here we show that a nanogap formed by two electrodes on a silicon oxide substrate functions as an electron-emitting nanodiode after the silicon oxide in the nanogap is electrically switched to a high-resistance conducting state. A nanodiode based on graphene electrodes can be turned on by a voltage of ~7 V in ~100 ns and show an emission current of up to several microamperes, corresponding to an emission density of ~10^6 A cm^-2 and emission efficiency as high as 16.6%. We attribute the electron emission to be generated from a metal-insulator-metal tunneling diode on the substrate surface formed by the rupture of conducting filaments in silicon oxide. An array of 100 nanodiodes exhibits a global emission density of 5 A cm^-2 and stable emission with negligible current degradation over tens of hours under modest vacuum. The combined advantages of a low operating voltage, fast temporal response, high emission density and efficiency, convenient fabrication and integration, and stable emission in modest vacuum make silicon oxide electron-emitting nanodiodes a promising on-chip alternative to thermionic emission sources.

Silicon Oxide Electron‐Emitting Nanodiodes

Silicon Oxide Electron-Emitting Nanodiodes

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of {limit} columns in the table. Remove at least 1 column to add or create another one.

Dapeng Wei

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

High‐Performance On‐Chip Electron Sources Based on Electroformed Silicon Oxide

Silicon Oxide Electron‐Emitting Nanodiodes

Silicon Oxide Electron-Emitting Nanodiodes