A microelectromechanical system (MEMS) is being developed for controlled fracture of a silicon micro-beam, a promising method for producing a pair of conformal electrodes. The distance between corresponding points in a pair of conformal electrodes remain constant (within a few nm variation) across a large area (~ 1 µm2). This can facilitate large area cold field emission / tunneling, which can be used for many purposes.
[Applications]
- High efficiency on-chip refrigeration (solid state refrigerator).
- Electron emitter with high brightness (high current density)
- X-ray, microwave micro-sources
[Publication]
- A Banerjee, Y Hirai, T Tsuchiya, O Tabata, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. (in press); Presented in IEEE-NEMS2016 int. conf. Japan, 2016, B3P-B-61., and 29th Int. Microprocesses and Nanotechnology Conf. (MNC 2016), 2016, 11C-10-5