A Vacuum Transistor Based on Electron Emission From SiO<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$_{\textit{x}}$</tex-math> </inline-formula> Tunneling Diodes

An ON-chip vacuum transistor based on electron emission from SiO (x) tunneling diodes formed at the side surface of a thin SiO2 film is proposed, where electrons transport in the vacuum channel between the electron emitter and collector electrode is modulated by an underneath gate electrode. The device performances are studied by the finite element simulation method. An on/off current ratio up to 10(5) and a subthreshold slope of similar to 500 mV/dec are obtained by simulation. Experimentally, a vacuum transistor based on SiO SiO (x) tunneling diodes in a surrounding structure is fabricated, achieving an on/off current ratio of 10(4) and a subthreshold slope of similar to 5 V/dec. The performance degradation in experiments is mainly attributed to unoptimized device structures.