Properties of nanogap with single crystal silicon cleavage planes

Thermionic generation generates electricity by collecting thermionic electrons emitted from the high temperature emitter with the opposite collector. When the distance between the emitter and the collector reduced to the nanoscale, in other words, the nanogap is used, thermionic generation can generates at room temperature due to quantum effects. However, there are few reports on the quantum effect between the nanogaps. In this study, we use MEMS device which can fabricate nanogaps by cleaving single-crystal silicon.

Journal Article

Masaki Shimofuri, Amit Banerjee, Jun Hirotani, Yoshikazu Hirai, Toshiyuki Tsuchiya
Nanometer order separation control of large working area nanogap created by cleavage of single-crystal silicon along {111} planes using a MEMS device
Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, Vol. 32, Issue 1 (2023), pp. 67-73.
DOI: 10.1109/JMEMS.2022.3213999

Conference Presentation

Masaki Shimofuri, Yoshikazu Hirai, Amit Banerjee, and Toshiyuki Tsuchiya
Observation of Pull-In by Casimir Force in MEMS-Controlled Nanogap Fabricated by Silicon Cleavage
The 35th IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS 2022), Tokyo, (January 9-13, 2022), pp. 511-514.
DOI: 10.1109/MEMS51670.2022.9699645