Engineering Commons^™

Microengineered Sensor Devices With Field Emission Electron Sources, Chao Sun

Dissertations

This dissertation describes the design, simulation, fabrication, and characterization of a microengineered pressure sensor device and a microengineered mass spectrometer device, both of which use field emission cathode tip arrays as electron sources. VLSI and MEMS process techniques are used to scale down the dimensions from existing vacuum pressure sensors and mass spectrometers.

The microengineered pressure sensor device is fabricated on a silicon substrate approximately 1cm by 1cm. It consists of an electron source in the form of cathode tip array structure, an electron accelerating space which includes a gas ionization volume, and an ion collection electrode. The electrons emitted …