AVS 50th International Symposium
    Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) Tuesday Sessions
       Session MM-TuA

Paper MM-TuA6
Simulation of Field Emission-based Pressure Sensors

Tuesday, November 4, 2003, 3:40 pm, Room 320

Session: Fabrication and Characterization of MEMS Devices
Presenter: A.M. Nair, University of Houston
Authors: A.M. Nair, University of Houston
N. Badi, University of Houston
A. Bensaoula, University of Houston
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This paper reports on simulating the moving part of a field emission-based pressure sensor. The device is comprised of a membrane made of silicon or other stiffer materials acting as the anode of a device comprised of a fixed flat cold cathode emitter. This is achieved by modeling the deflection and mechanical stress of a diaphragm of varying geometry under selected input pressures. Realistic field emission characteristics from our boron nitride and carbon nitride cold cathodes@footnote 1@ were used to model the current density distribution in the deflected diaphragm. The total current output was achieved by integrating the current density over the entire diaphragm area as a function of membrane bending due to external pressure. Results show that simple and reliable field emission devices can be designed to yield extremely sensitive pressure sensors but their characteristics are critically dependent on the specific geometry. Simulation data will be presented for devices with geometries similar to those being fabricated in our laboratory. @FootnoteText@@footnote 1@N. Badi, A. Tempez, D. Starikov, A. Bensaoula, V.P.Ageev, A. Karabutov, M.V. Ugarov, V. Frolov, E. Loubnin, K. Waters and A. Shultz, "Field Emission from as-grown and Surface Modified BN and CN Thin Films" J. Vac. Soc.Technol. A 17, 1191 (1999). Acknowledgment: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0010100