Temperature Effect on the Sensitivity of a Highly Sensitive Micro-Machined Displacement Sensor

In this paper, a comparative study of temperature effect which introduces a thermionic current under a high applied electric field, on three different modes of field emission current, such as Tunneling current, Fowler-Nordheim current and Field emission current in between these two regions has been done. Moreover, an idea of micromechanical displacement sensor with high sensitivity, operating in Fowler-Nordheim current mode, has been proposed. The displacement sensitivity of proposed sensor in Fowler-Nordheim current domain is about 10-9 m/A. The displacement sensitivity has been shifted from its expected value due to thermal effect (at 700K temperature) at about 1010V/m applied electric field across tip gap.