Diamond field emission triode with low gate turn-on voltage and high gain

Abstract

A diamond field emission triode with very low gate turn-on voltage of 10 V and high gain factor of 250 is reported. The gated diamond triode was fabricated with a self-aligning gate technique on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. The I/sub a/-V/sub g/ plot of emission characteristics with 4 tips shows a very low gate turn-on voltage of 10 V and high emission current of 6 /spl mu/A at gate voltage of 20 V. I/sub a/-V/sub a/ plots of emission characteristics demonstrate the desired saturation behavior of a field emission transistor with a high voltage gain of 250. The low turn-on gate voltage and high gain factor is comparable to solid-state devices, confirming that the diamond field emission triode has significant potential for IC-compatible vacuum microelectronic applications and beyond.