Vacuum Nanoelectronics Based on Semiconductor Field-Emission Structures: Current State and Development Prospects. Review

The development of semiconductor integrated technology and the transition to nanometer resolution of the lithographic process has led to the development of semiconductor field-emission structures. However, the set of technologies for manufacturing field-emission devices has not, at present, been widely introduced into production and commercialization due to their short service life and insufficient operational stability. The work provides a comparative analysis of the significant results obtained to date on the development of semiconductor field-emission structures with a nanoscale conduction channel in order to assess the current state and prospects for further development of vacuum nanoelectronics. Technological and operational problems in the development of nanoscale field-emission triode structures using various semiconductor materials are analyzed. The progress achieved in the field of integrating nanoscale field-emission structures with standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductot (CMOS) transistors is shown. Possible areas of the application of vacuum nanoelectronic structures are considered. The current tasks of this scientific field are described, as well as problems arising in the process of introducing the elemental base of vacuum nanoelectronics into the cycle of development and commercialization of vacuum IC technology.