Field Electrons Intercepted by Coplanar Gates in Nanoscale Air Channel

Air-channel transistors can exhibit ballistic transport and immunity from carrier scattering if the channel distance is smaller than the mean free path (MFP) of electrons in an ambient environment. This study explored metal-based air-channel transistors with coplanar gates with different air-channel distances. The results indicate that the devices can exhibit field-enhanced features, but will eventually be field-lowered with increasing gate potential because the coplanar gates attract and intercept a portion of electron emission. The air-channel distance determines the device conductivity with or without a gate electric field, whereas the gate-to-gate distance determines the interception of electron emission. These devices may be utilized as inverters for vacuum transistors.