Sapkota Keshab R, Leonard François, Talin A Alec, Gunning Brendan P, Kazanowska Barbara A, Jones Kevin S, Wang George T
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185, United States.
Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, California 94551, United States.
Nano Lett. 2021 Mar 10;21(5):1928-1934. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c03959. Epub 2021 Feb 23.
The III-nitride semiconductors have many attractive properties for field-emission vacuum electronics, including high thermal and chemical stability, low electron affinity, and high breakdown fields. Here, we report top-down fabricated gallium nitride (GaN)-based nanoscale vacuum electron diodes operable in air, with record ultralow turn-on voltages down to ∼0.24 V and stable high field-emission currents, tested up to several microamps for single-emitter devices. We leverage a scalable, top-down GaN nanofabrication method leading to damage-free and smooth surfaces. Gap-dependent and pressure-dependent studies provide new insights into the design of future, integrated nanogap vacuum electron devices. The results show promise for a new class of high-performance and robust, on-chip, III-nitride-based vacuum nanoelectronics operable in air or reduced vacuum.
III族氮化物半导体对于场发射真空电子学具有许多吸引人的特性，包括高热稳定性和化学稳定性、低电子亲和势以及高击穿场强。在此，我们报告了通过自上而下方法制造的基于氮化镓（GaN）的纳米级真空电子二极管，该二极管可在空气中工作，具有创纪录的超低开启电压，低至约0.24 V，并且具有稳定的高场发射电流，对于单发射极器件，测试电流高达数微安。我们采用了一种可扩展的自上而下的GaN纳米制造方法，该方法可实现无损伤且表面光滑。对间隙依赖性和压力依赖性的研究为未来集成纳米间隙真空电子器件的设计提供了新的见解。结果表明，有望实现一类新型的高性能、坚固耐用的片上III族氮化物基真空纳米电子学，可在空气或低真空环境中工作。
