GaN Nanowire Field Emitters with a Self-Aligned Gate Process

Abstract

Electron devices based on field emitters (FE) are promising for harsh-environments and high-frequency electronics thanks to their radiation hardness and scattering-free electron transport. Si field emitters with a sub-10 nm tip radius and self-aligned gates have demonstrated sub-20 V turn-on operation [1] , [2] . However, stability and operating voltage still need further improvement to enable circuit applications. III-Nitrides are excellent candidates to overcome these issues because of their strong bonding energies [3] and tunable electron affinities [4] . So far, there are few demonstrations of III-Nitride field emitters with self-aligned gates, which are critical to reduce the gate-emitter voltage (V GE ). In this work, a novel GaN nanowire (NW) field emitter based on self-aligned gates is demonstrated to reduce the gate-emitter turn-on voltage (V GE, ON ) below 30 V. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the lowest control voltage in any GaN field emitter device, opening an opportunity for using III-N in integrated field emitters.