Modulating the Cathode by Back-Gate for Planar Nanoscale Vacuum/Air Channel Electron Tube

Nanoscale vacuum/air channel electron tubes (VETs) keep emerging owing to their superior performance in high-temperature and high-frequency working environments. However, in VETs the edge field of the gate with inferior modulation efficiency, nonnegligible leakage or accumulation, and poor compatibility with integrated circuits (ICs) technology limits the realization of VET IC. In this work, an original cathode-modulated VET (CMVET) is proposed, which can efficiently control the field emission current of the cathode by directly regulating the electron density of the cathode by back-gate, resulting in regulating the anode current. As a result, we obtain a transconductance of 4.6 \; \mu S and a suppressed gate leakage current of no more than 10^{-{11}} A for the CMVET device, which is completely fabricated by traditional microelectronic process, being compatible with IC processes. On the basis of this strategy, it is promising to realize the CMVET IC with great resistance to high frequency, high temperature, and high radiation.