Planar nanoscale vacuum channel transistors based on resistive switching.

Resistance switching (RS) offers promising applications in a variety of areas. In particular, silicon oxide (SiO) under RS can serve as electron sources in new types of miniature vacuum electron tubes. In this work, planar nanoscale vacuum channel transistors (NVCTs) with graphene electrodes and RS SiOelectron sources were developed. In each RS-NVCT, the resistance between the ground and the gate underwent high-low-high transitions, which resulted from formation and subsequent rupture of Si conducting filaments. Electrons were emitted from the post-reset Si filaments and the current received by the collector () was well controlled by the gate voltage (). The transfer characteristics reveal thatwas quite sensitive towhen RS occurred. Withsweeping from 0 to -20 V, the obtained subthreshold swing (SS) of 76 mV decwas quite close to the theoretical limit of the SS of a field effect transistor at room temperature (60 mV dec). The largest ON/OFF ratio was of the order of 10. The output characteristics of the devices indicate that the dependence ofon the collector voltage () weakened at highvalues. These results demonstrate the application potential of RS-NVCTs as either switching devices or amplifiers.