Nanoscale Vacuum Channel Electron Sources

Abstract

We present three different architectures of Si field emitter devices with self-aligned gates (single-gated, double-gated and graphene encapsulated double-gated) for high field factors, $\beta$, and low turn-on voltages, $\nabla_{\mathrm{ON}}$. The lowest $V_{\mathrm{O}\mathrm{N}}$ achieved was 8 V using the graphene encapsulated double-gated device. All the device architectures demonstrated linear correlation between $V_{\mathrm{ON}}$ and the magnitude of the slope of the Fowler-Nordheim plot, $b_{\mathrm{F}\mathrm{N}}$. We modeled the effects of tip radius, aperture diameters and tip position relative to the gate on $\beta$, in order to reduce $V_{\mathrm{ON}}$.