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Fabrication of Gate-tunable Graphene Devices for Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Studies with Coulomb Impurities
Published on: July 24, 2015
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Tunable graphene micro-emitters with fast temporal response and controllable electron emission.
Gongtao Wu1, Xianlong Wei1, Song Gao1
1Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices, Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Nature Communications
|May 11, 2016
Summary
Researchers developed microscale graphene electron emitters with tunable, fast-switching capabilities. These micro-emitters offer controllable performance for advanced vacuum electronics applications.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Nanotechnology
- Vacuum Electronics
Background:
- Microfabricated electron emitters have been researched for decades for vacuum electronics.
- Achieving tunable, fast-response, and controllable electron emission from microfabricated devices remains a challenge.
Purpose of the Study:
- To scale down thermionic emitters to the microscale.
- To develop tunable microfabricated electron emitters with fast temporal response and controllable electron emission using graphene.
Main Methods:
- Utilized microfabrication technologies to create Joule-heated microscale graphene films as filaments.
- Engineered graphene dimensions to control and reproduce emission performance.
- Fabricated graphene micro-emitter arrays.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated tunable emission current of up to six orders of magnitude with modest gate voltage.
- Achieved a turn-on/off time of less than 1 μs, significantly faster than conventional emitters.
- Confirmed controllable and reproducible emission performance through graphene dimension engineering.
Conclusions:
- Microscale graphene thermionic emitters offer a promising solution for tunable, high-speed electron emission.
- Microfabrication enables the creation of uniform graphene micro-emitter arrays for scalable vacuum electronics.
- These advancements pave the way for large-scale addressable micro-emitter arrays.
