Ultralow Voltage GaN Vacuum Nanodiodes in Air

Sapkota, Keshab R.; Léonard, François; Talin, A. Alec; Kazanowska, Barbara; Jones, K. S.; Wang, George T.

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c03959

Cited by 28 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The anode and cathode were fabricated as a sharp tip structure to maximize the electrical field by a structural effect. 22,23,54,64,65 The sharp tip structure can enhance the electrical field approximately by more than 2fold at the point of the tip relative to a flat electrode structure. 11,33 Before vacuum sealing, the tunneling diode was measured in air and vacuum state using a vacuum test chamber (Figure 5c, left and middle, respectively).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…20,21 Additionally, a vacuum tunneling device can be more robust in harsh environmental conditions such as a wide driving temperature or radiation conditions due to the empty channel. 5,22,23 In the past, vacuum tubes were dominantly used as a key component of electronic circuits. 24−26 However, despite these advantages, the old vacuum tubes have some limitations.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Vacuum Tunneling Transistor with Nano Vacuum Chamber for Harsh Environments

Heo,

Shin,

Jun

et al. 2023

ACS Nano

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A nano vacuum tube which consists of a vacuum transistor and a nano vacuum chamber was demonstrated. For the device, a vacuum region is an electron transport channel, and a vacuum is a tunneling barrier. Tilted angle evaporation was studied for the formation of the nano level vacuum chamber structure. This vacuum tube was ultraminiaturized with several tens of 10–18 L scale volume and 10–6 Torr of pressure. The device structure made it possible to achieve a high integration density and to sustain the vacuum state in various real operations. In particular, the vacuum transistor performed stably in extreme external environments because the tunneling mechanism showed a wide range of working stability. The vacuum was sustained well by the sealing layer and provided a defect-free tunneling junction. In tests, the high vacuum level was maintained for more than 15 months with high reliability. The Al sealing layer and tube structure can effectively block exposed light such as visible light and UV, enabling the stable operation of the tunneling transistor. In addition, it is estimated that the structure blocks approximately 5 keV of X-ray. The device showed stable operating characteristics in a wide temperature range of 100–390 K. Therefore, the vacuum tube can be used in a wide range of applications involving integrated circuits while resolving the disadvantages of a large volume in old vacuum tubes. Additionally, it can be an important solution for next-generation devices in various fields such as aerospace, artificial intelligence, and THz applications.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Vacuum Tunneling Transistor with Nano Vacuum Chamber for Harsh Environments

Heo,

Shin,

Jun

et al. 2023

ACS Nano

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“…Keshab R Sapkota and co-workers have reported single-emitter GaN-based nanoscale vacuum electron diode devices with lateral nanogap sizes down to ~26 nm. The devices can operate in air with ultralow turn-on voltages down to ~0.24 V and stable high field emission currents (tested up to 10 µA for single-emitter devices) [ 17 ]. The lateral nanoscale channels were generally prepared by expensive exposure technology and other advanced micro/nano-fabrication technology, which makes it difficult to realize the batch production of consistent devices at the wafer level.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vertical Nanoscale Vacuum Channel Triodes Based on the Material System of Vacuum Electronics

Han¹,

Li²,

Cai³

et al. 2023

Micromachines

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Nanoscale vacuum channel triodes realize the vacuum-like transmission of electrons in the atmosphere because the transmission distance is less than the mean free path of electrons in air. This new hybrid device is the deep integration of vacuum electronics technology, micro-nano electronics technology, and optoelectronic technology. It has the advantages of both vacuum and solid-state devices and is considered to be the next generation of vacuum electronic devices. In this work, vertical nanoscale vacuum channel diodes and triodes with edge emission were fabricated using advanced micro-nano processing technology. The device materials were all based on the vacuum electronics material system. The field emission characteristics of the devices were investigated. The diode continued emitting at a bias voltage from 0 to 50 V without failure, and the current variation under different vacuum degrees was better than 2.1%. The field emission characteristics of the devices were evaluated over a wide pressure range of between 10−7 Pa and 105 Pa, and the results could explain the vacuum-like behavior of the devices when operating in air. The current variation of the triode is better than 6.1% at Vg = 8 V and Va = 10 V.

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“…Low-power ultrafast electronics are being pursued to drive sustainable progress in modern electronics and meet emerging needs in the next-generation electronics. − As fundamental building blocks in modern electronics, traditional metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) rapidly approach their physical limit during continuous geometric scaling. − Despite considerable efforts in terms of structure innovations, , materials substitutions, − and new mechanism introductions, it is still challenging to achieve a low-power ultrafast electrical response toward the development of the next-generation electronics. ,, Recently emerging nanoscale air-channel electronic devices (NAEDs) ,,− have attracted extensive attention due to their inherent low-power ultrafast abilities. ,− The low-power ultrafast electrical performance of NAEDs is attributed to the nature of ballistic transport of low-voltage tunneling emitting electrons in the nanoscale air channel without collisions and perturbations. In our previous work, we demonstrated a NAED with a sub-1 ps ultrafast electrical response and a sub-1 V low turn-on voltage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Nanotube-Based High-Current Nanoscale Air-Channel Electronic Devices for Low-Power Ultrafast Electronics

Li,

Zhang,

Yan

et al. 2023

ACS Appl. Nano Mater.

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Nanoscale air-channel electronic devices (NAEDs) have gained intensive attention recently due to their great potential as fundamental building blocks in future low-power ultrafast electronics. Despite considerable progress on low-power ultrafast characteristics, practical applications of NAEDs are being hindered by the low working current generally in the range of 0.01–20 μA. This unattainable high current is mainly due to the weak emission of electrons from a seriously limited effective emission area in conventional low-voltage field-emission (LV-FE) electron sources of currently existing NAEDs. Here, we present a high-current LV-FE electron source for an NAED, which consists of high-aspect-ratio carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and large-specific surface-area microstructures. The emission current density is increased exponentially by compensating for the field-screening effect between adjacent CNTs with the additional field-enhancement effect derived from underlying microstructures. Due to the simultaneously enlarged effective emission area, milliampere-level high current is achieved by optimizing the structure of the CNT-based LV-FE electron source. CNTs have been directly grown on well-selected microstructures with the matched feature size and improved interface contact, experimentally demonstrating an optimized LV-FE electron source with a high current of 6 mA. The feasibility of achieving high-current performance with a subpicosecond ultrafast response at a low turn-on voltage has been confirmed by configuring NAED with a CNT-based LV-FE electron source. This achievement has great potential to promote future practical applications in low-power ultrafast electronics.

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Ultralow Voltage GaN Vacuum Nanodiodes in Air

Cited by 28 publications

References 42 publications

Vacuum Tunneling Transistor with Nano Vacuum Chamber for Harsh Environments

Vacuum Tunneling Transistor with Nano Vacuum Chamber for Harsh Environments

Vertical Nanoscale Vacuum Channel Triodes Based on the Material System of Vacuum Electronics

Carbon Nanotube-Based High-Current Nanoscale Air-Channel Electronic Devices for Low-Power Ultrafast Electronics

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