Metal Cantilever-Like Nano-Air-Channel Devices With Enhancing Field Emission Current

Metal nano-air-channel devices (NACDs), as revolutionary semiconductor-free electronics, have attracted considerable interest for various applications. However, current metal NACDs research predominantly focuses on planar configurations, relying on high-cost nanofabrication techniques and suffering from restricted field emission (FE) current. Herein, we propose a vertical metal NACD architecture featuring cantilever-like suspended structure, fabricated through a cost-effective sacrificial-layer etching strategy. Systematic investigations reveal that the FE current can be flexibly controlled over six orders of magnitude (from nA to mA) by adjusting the etching time. The optimized device with a 50 nm channel demonstrates a high FE current of up to 1.4 mA at a low voltage of 3 V, surpassing most existing metal NACDs. This work opens up exciting prospects toward all-metal electronics and even integrated circuits.