Fabrication of nanometer scale gaps for thermo-tunneling devices

We report a fabrication approach for making nanometer wide gaps between two planar metallic electrodes, which can be utilized for the formation of thermo-tunneling devices. The technique is a three dimensional variant of the electromigration techniques used for creating nanometer sized gaps on planar surfaces. The gap is formed by applying a low level voltage between two parallel electrodes, each deposited on separate wafers that have been bonded together. I-V and thermal characterization of the gap show very good agreement with modeling results, indicating a tunneling gap on the order of 0.5-1 nm. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3641897]