Design and fabrication of field emission-based pressure microsensors

The development of functional field emission based pressure microsensors is reported. The fabrication and development of both electrical and mechanical parts of the pressure sensor device are investigated; these are the cold cathode emitters and the sensing membranes, respectively. In order to avoid expensive process runs and optimize the design to meet the sensor requirements, simulation work was performed using commercially available FEMLAB package software. Realistic field emission characteristics from sulfur doped boron nitride (S-BN) cold cathode 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 area of the membrane as a function of the external pressure.