CN115979504A - Novel on-chip miniature vacuum sensor and manufacturing method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The application discloses a novel on-chip miniature vacuum sensor and a manufacturing method thereof, wherein the novel on-chip miniature vacuum sensor comprises a substrate, an insulating material layer which is arranged on the surface of the substrate and is composed of oxides or nitrides, and an electrode pair which is partially or completely arranged on the insulating material layer, wherein the insulating material layer is subjected to soft breakdown by applying voltage to form an electronic tunneling junction inside or on the surface, and the electrode pair is contacted with a conductive area in the electronic tunneling junction. The working principle of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor is that the electrode pair is used for driving the electron tunneling junction to generate conduction current, the width of the electron tunneling junction dynamically changes along with air pressure under the action of driving voltage, and the conduction current passing through the tunneling junction attenuates along with the increase of the air pressure, so that the pressure can be measured by reading the resistance value of the tunneling junction under different pressures. The pressure intensity measuring range of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor is 0.1-10 ⁴ Pa, wide range, simple structure, easy processing, and can realize small space pressure detection.

Description

Novel on-chip miniature vacuum sensor and manufacturing method thereof

Technical Field

The application relates to the field of electronic science and technology, in particular to an on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on an electronic tunneling junction and a manufacturing method thereof.

Background

The vacuum sensor is an instrument for measuring vacuum degree or air pressure, and is widely applied to various industrial equipment. At present, although the traditional vacuum sensor is developed, the traditional vacuum sensor has the defects of large volume, high power consumption, large mass and the like. In some fields, such as vacuum measurement of a micro space and space flight, there are very strict limitations on the size, weight and power of a vacuum sensor, and thus miniaturization and on-chip miniaturization of the vacuum sensor are very important.

On-chip micro vacuum sensors (miniature vacuum gauge) have been well developed, and various on-chip micro electron sources such as miniaturized pirani vacuum sensors, miniaturized thin film vacuum sensors, quartz vacuum sensors, and miniaturized ionization vacuum sensors are now available. In application, many different types of vacuum sensors work in sequence to measure gas pressure. For example, if high vacuum is measured, some type of thin film or thermally conductive vacuum sensor is used to measure 10 ⁵ To 10 ¹ Pa, then the ionization vacuum sensor starts measuring 10 ¹ A gas pressure of Pa or less.

Although on-chip miniature vacuum sensors based on various microstructures and sensing methods have been proposed, these miniature, on-chip vacuum sensors suffer from various deficiencies. The most common miniature pirani vacuum sensor measures vacuum pressure based on the thermal conductivity of the surrounding gas, providing high sensitivity and 0.1-10 ⁵ Wide detection range of Pa. However, most miniature pirani vacuum sensors are susceptible to damage when directly exposed to the testing environment due to their suspension and mechanical fragility of the monolithically integrated MEMS structure. In addition, its free standing micromachined feature lacks mechanical robustness and layout design is incompatible with the design rules of many standard IC processes. For the ionization vacuum sensor, on one hand, certain space is needed for gas ionization collision, so that certain difficulty exists in miniaturization of the ionization vacuum sensor, and on the other hand, the ionization vacuum sensor usually adopts a hot cathode or a field emission cathode to provide electrons, so that the problems of service life and heat dissipation are difficult to solve. Furthermore, since pirani and thermionic vacuum sensors are thermally driven, thermal effects are a key issue for their integration into CMOS circuits. For thin film vacuum sensors, there are still problems with zero drift and dimensional limitations due to diaphragm creep. The quartz crystal sensor has high precision, but is expensive and has poor usability.

On the other hand, the complicated structure and manufacturing process of the above-mentioned various micro vacuum sensors are very disadvantageous to the mass production for practical use. For example, the suspension structure required for pirani vacuum sensors and thermionic vacuum sensors requires a complicated process flow such as an etching process or the use of a sacrificial layer. Ionization vacuum sensors typically have multiple electrodes or layers, consisting of a cathode, a grid, and an anode. Therefore, practical miniature vacuum sensors having a simple structure, low cost manufacturing and easy integration are rarely reported.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above, the present application provides an on-chip micro vacuum sensor and a method for implementing the same, the vacuum sensor of the present invention is mainly composed of an electron tunneling junction formed inside or on a surface of a soft-breakdown insulating material layer, and a resistance value of the electron tunneling junction has high sensitivity to vacuum air pressure under a certain driving voltage. Has the advantages of simple structure, easy processing, low working voltage, integration and the like, and the detection range is between 0.1 and 10 ⁴ Pa, the goals of on-chip miniaturization and microminiaturization of the vacuum sensor are preliminarily achieved, and further the vacuum sensor meets more application requirements.

In order to solve the technical problem, the following technical scheme is adopted in the application:

the application provides a miniature vacuum sensor on chip based on electron tunneling junction, includes:

a substrate;

the insulating material layer is positioned on the surface of the substrate and is composed of oxide or nitride, and the insulating material layer can be changed into a conductive state from an insulating state after being subjected to soft breakdown by applying voltage;

forming an electronic tunneling junction inside or on the surface of the insulating material layer after the insulating material layer is subjected to soft breakdown by applying voltage;

the electron tunneling junction is composed of a conducting region, an insulating region and a conducting region, the electrode pair is in contact with the conducting region of the electron tunneling junction, and the electrode pair is used for driving the electron tunneling junction to generate conduction current.

Alternatively, the insulating layer composed of an oxide or nitride may be selected from one or more of the following materials: aluminum oxide, silicon oxide, beryllium oxide, tantalum oxide, hafnium oxide, tungsten oxide, zinc oxide, magnesium oxide, zirconium oxide, titanium oxide, nickel oxide, germanium oxide, aluminum nitride, silicon nitride, titanium nitride, tungsten nitride.

Optionally, the electrode pair is selected from one or more of the following materials: metal, graphene, carbon nanotubes, or a conductive two-dimensional material.

Optionally, the substrate is selected from one or more of the following materials: silicon, germanium, silicon oxide, glass, aluminum oxide, beryllium oxide, silicon nitride, aluminum nitride, silicon carbide, diamond, ceramic.

Optionally, the electrode pair comprises two opposing finger electrodes extending beyond two regional electrodes, each of the regional electrodes comprising at least one finger electrode.

The application also provides a miniature vacuum sensor system, which comprises a base and the miniature vacuum sensor; the base is used for providing electric connection between the driving electrode pair and the circuit module.

Optionally, the micro vacuum sensor system further comprises a circuit module; the circuit module is connected with the power supply connecting port and used for providing voltage for the driving electrode pair of the miniature vacuum sensor through the power supply connecting port, regulating and controlling the voltage and reading the resistor.

The present application also provides a method for manufacturing an on-chip micro vacuum sensor, comprising:

providing a substrate;

preparing an insulating material layer composed of oxide or nitride on the surface of the substrate;

forming an electrode pair or an array of electrode pairs on the substrate, partially or wholly overlying the layer of insulating material, with a gap or array of gaps between the electrode pairs;

applying a voltage to the electrode pair or the electrode pair array causes a soft breakdown of the insulating material layer in the gap between the electrode pairs, causing it to change from an insulating state to a conductive state.

Compared with the prior art, the method has the following beneficial effects:

based on the technical scheme, the application provides an on-chip micro vacuum sensor and a manufacturing method thereof. The on-chip micro vacuum sensor adopts a novel structure of an electron tunneling junction of a conductive area, an insulating area and a conductive area, an electrode pair is used for driving the electron tunneling junction to generate conduction current, the width of the tunneling junction dynamically changes along with air pressure under the action of driving voltage, and the conduction current passing through the tunneling junction is attenuated along with the increase of the air pressure, so that the pressure can be measured by reading the resistance values of the tunneling junction under different pressures. The on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on the electron tunneling junction has the following advantages: firstly, simple structure, workable, operating voltage are low, have avoided bulky, the structure is complicated, the consumption is high and the thermal effect, the structure fragility scheduling problem that the pirani vacuum sensor exists that traditional ionization vacuum exists, have tentatively realized vacuum sensor's on-chip and micromation. Secondly, the device has wider detection range (0.1-10) ⁴ Pa) is suitable for high pressure detection. And thirdly, the size is small, and the device has application prospect in the aspect of small-space pressure detection. Fourthly, the manufacturing process of the vacuum sensor is more compatible with the integrated circuit process, large-scale batch processing can be realized, and the production cost is low.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the operation of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor of the present invention; FIG. 1 (a) is a schematic representation of a conductive region-insulating region-conductive region electron tunneling junction formed after soft breakdown of an insulating material comprised of one or more oxides or nitrides in an electrode gap; FIG. 1 (b) is a schematic diagram of the band structure of the electron tunneling junction; fig. 1 (c) is a schematic structural diagram of the electron tunneling junction structure varying with vacuum pressure, wherein: 210 and 211 are electrically conductive regions, 212 is an insulated silicon oxide channel, d ₁ 、d ₂ 、d ₃ To increase the width of the silicon oxide channel in the electron tunneling junction with the gas pressure, the arrows indicate the electron tunneling path, (I) _c ) ₁ 、(I _c ) ₂ 、(I _c ) ₃ For the width of a silicon oxide channel in an electron tunneling junction as d ₁ 、d ₂ 、d ₃ And R1, R2 and R3 are respectively the conduction current and the resistance of the corresponding electron tunneling junctionThe value size.

Fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of an on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on an electron tunneling junction according to an embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor along dashed line AA'.

FIG. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of an on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on an electron tunneling junction according to a second embodiment of the present application; FIG. 4 (a) is a schematic perspective view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor; FIG. 4 (b) is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor along dashed line AA'.

FIG. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of an on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on multi-species electron tunneling junctions according to a third embodiment of the present application; FIG. 5 (a) is a schematic perspective view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor; FIG. 5 (b) is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor along dashed line AA ', and FIG. 5 (c) is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor along dashed line BB'.

FIG. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of an array-type on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on electron tunneling junctions according to a fourth embodiment of the present disclosure; FIG. 6 (a) is a schematic perspective view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor; FIG. 6 (b) is a schematic diagram of the electron tunneling junction formed at each electrode gap of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor; FIG. 6 (c) is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor along the dotted line AA', wherein an enlarged view of a square dotted line frame is a cross-sectional view of one of the electrode gaps of the array-type micro vacuum sensor.

FIG. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of an on-chip micro vacuum sensor system based on an electron tunneling junction according to a fifth embodiment of the present application; FIG. 7 (a) is a schematic perspective view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor system; FIG. 7 (b) is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor system along dashed line AA'.

Detailed Description

In order to make the aforementioned objects, features and advantages of the present application more comprehensible, embodiments accompanying the present application are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Example one

The on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on the electron tunneling junction constructed by the embodiment comprises the following components:

a substrate 1; an insulating material layer 2 made of oxide or nitride and a first electrode 31 and a second electrode 32 of an electrode pair contacted with the two sides of the insulating material layer 2 are positioned above a substrate 1, an electron tunneling junction 21 is positioned on the upper surface of the insulating material layer 2, the electron tunneling junction is composed of a conductive region, an insulating region and a conductive region which are formed on the surface of the insulating material layer after the insulating material layer is subjected to soft breakdown by applying voltage, and the conductive regions 210 and 211 are respectively connected with the electrode pair 31 and 32;

and the electrode pairs 31 and 32 are positioned at two ends of the electron tunneling junction 21 and are in contact with the electron tunneling junction, and are used for providing voltage for the vacuum sensor, driving the insulating material layer 2 to be in a soft breakdown state and become a conductive state, and driving the electron tunneling junction to generate electron tunneling so as to generate conduction current.

The specific working principle of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on the electron tunneling junction is as follows:

applying a voltage with a certain intensity between the electrode pair 31, 32 to make the insulating material layer 2 in the gap of the electrode pair to be in soft breakdown, forming a conductive region penetrating through the whole gap on the surface of the electrode pair, and regulating and controlling the voltage of the conductive region at two ends of the driving electrode(s) ((>10V) can undergo a transition from a low resistance state to a high resistance state, the conductive region is broken, so that a conductive region-insulating region-conductive region electron tunneling junction 21 is formed on the surface or inside the insulating material layer 2, and the electron tunneling junction generates electron tunneling under the action of a driving voltage, so as to generate a conduction current, as shown in fig. 1 (a). Fig. 1 (b) is a schematic diagram of the energy band structure of the electron tunneling junction, when a voltage is applied, electrons in the conductive region 210 with a lower potential accelerate under the driving of an electric field by the energy barrier tunneling through the conductive region-insulating region interface, and electrons entering the insulating region 212 encounter phonons or impurities in the insulator during the movement to be scattered. As shown in FIG. 1 (c), the width of the middle insulation region 212 of the electron tunneling junction is dynamically changed with the air pressure under the action of the driving voltage in a certain air pressure range, and the pressure is increased (P) ₁ <P ₂ <P ₃ ) The wider the width of the insulating region 212 of the electron tunneling junction (d) ₁ <d ₂ <d ₃ ) The resistance value of the corresponding electron tunneling junction 21 increases with increasing gas pressure (R) ₁ <R ₂ <R ₃ ) Resulting in a smaller conduction current through the tunnel junction ((I) _c ) ₁ >(I _c ) ₂ >(I _c ) ₃ ) And thus the air pressure level can be detected from the resistance value calculated from the conduction current of the tunnel junction.

Fig. 2 is a schematic perspective view of an on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on an electron tunneling junction according to this embodiment, and fig. 3 is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor along a dashed line AA' in fig. 1. The electrode pairs 31 and 32 are in direct contact with the substrate 1, and the substrate 1 plays a role in supporting and heat conducting layers, so that heat generated in the working process of the vacuum sensor can be dissipated in time, local overheating is avoided, and stable and long-acting work of the vacuum sensor is ensured.

Example two

In order to simplify the processing flow, in this embodiment, the electron tunneling junction and the electrode pair are disposed on different layers of the substrate surface, the electrode pair is disposed above the insulating material layer, the electron tunneling junction is disposed on the upper surface of the insulating material layer and below the electrode layer, the insulating material layer including the electron tunneling junction extends to the contact interface of the electrode pair, and the substrate is in contact with the insulating material layer where the electron tunneling junction is disposed.

The on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on the electron tunneling junction constructed by the embodiment comprises the following components: a substrate 1, an insulating material layer 2 made of an oxide or nitride on the substrate 1, electron tunneling junctions 21 on the upper surface of the insulating material layer 2, and electrode pairs 31, 32 on the insulating material layer 2.

Fig. 4 (a) is a schematic perspective view of an on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on an electron tunneling junction according to the second embodiment, and fig. 4 (b) is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor along the dashed line AA' in fig. 1. The electrode pairs 31, 32 are located on the insulating material layer 2, the insulating material layer 2 between the electrode pairs is in contact with the electrode pairs 31, 32 on two sides, and the insulating material layer 2 between the electrode pairs can be in a soft breakdown state to be in a conductive state under the driving of voltage. The conductive regions are broken by regulating the voltage to form two sections of conductive regions 210 and 211, and an insulating gap 212 is formed between the conductive regions 210 and 211. In this way, the electron tunneling junction 21 having a structure of conductive region-insulating region-conductive region is formed in the insulating material layer 2, wherein the structure is formed by the first conductive region 210, the insulator gap 212 and the second conductive region 211. Therefore, the present embodiment has the same structural elements, positional relationship and operation principle as the first embodiment, and the electrode pair 31, 32 provides a voltage for the electron tunneling junction to drive electron tunneling in the electron tunneling junction to generate a conduction current. The difference is that the drive electrodes 31, 32 are located on the insulating material layer 2 in this embodiment.

EXAMPLE III

In order to realize the detection of the pressure of different gas types, such as oxygen and nitrogen, the embodiment provides the on-chip micro vacuum gauge capable of detecting the gas types, which simultaneously selects multiple insulating material layers, and forms different types of electron tunneling junctions on the upper surfaces of the different insulating material layers respectively, so that the sensing of the gas types can be realized simultaneously.

The on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on the multi-type electron tunneling junctions constructed by the embodiment comprises: the electron tunneling junction comprises a substrate 1, an oxide insulating material layer 2 and a nitride insulating material layer 2 'which are positioned on the substrate 1, electron tunneling junctions 21 and 2' which are respectively positioned on the upper surfaces of the insulating material layers 2 and 2', and electrode pairs 31 and 32 which are positioned at two ends of the electron tunneling junctions 21 and 2' and are in contact with the electron tunneling junctions.

Fig. 5 (a) is a schematic perspective view of an on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on multiple kinds of electron tunneling junctions according to the present embodiment, fig. 5 (b) is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor along a dashed line AA 'in fig. 1, and fig. 5 (c) is a cross-sectional view of the on-chip micro vacuum sensor along a dashed line BB' in fig. 1. The oxide insulating material layer 2 and the nitride insulating material layer 2 'on the substrate 1 are in contact with the two electrode pairs 31 and 32, and the insulating material layers 2 and 2' between the electrode pairs are in soft breakdown to be conductive under the driving of voltage. The conductive regions are broken by controlling the voltage, conductive regions 210 and 211 and 2'10 and 2'11 are formed in the insulating material layers 2 and 2', and insulation gaps 212 and 2'12 are formed between the conductive regions 210 and 211 and 2'10 and 2'11, respectively. In this way, the insulating material layers 2 and 2 'are formed with different kinds of electron tunnel junctions 21 and 2'. Therefore, the present embodiment has the same constituent elements, position relationship and operation principle as the first embodiment, and the driving electrodes 31 and 32 provide voltages for the electron tunneling junctions to drive electron tunneling in the electron tunneling junctions to generate conduction currents. Except that the present embodiment includes various insulating material layers and electron tunneling junctions.

Example four

In order to meet the conduction current of the vacuum sensor required by practical application and improve the detection sensitivity, the embodiment provides an array type on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on the electron tunneling junctions, the substrate surface is formed by arranging a plurality of electron tunneling junction arrays provided by the second embodiment, and the conduction current is the sum of the contributions of the electron tunneling junction units in the second embodiment.

The array type vacuum sensor based on the electron tunneling junction constructed by the embodiment comprises the following components: a substrate 1; an insulating material layer 2 made of oxide or nitride and located over the substrate 1; a plurality of large electrode pairs 310, 320 and 330 arranged at intervals on the insulating material layer 2; a plurality of extended small finger-shaped electrodes 311 and 321 are arranged between the adjacent large electrode pairs 310 and 320, and the small finger-shaped electrodes at two sides are crossed and arranged in parallel along the vertical direction of the large electrode pairs 310 and 320 at equal intervals; the finger-shaped small electrodes extending from the adjacent large electrodes are in one-to-one correspondence and exist in the electrode gaps, and a gap array is formed on the insulating material layer 2; an array of conducting region-insulating region-conducting region electron tunneling junctions 21, which are composed of conducting regions 210, insulator gaps 212, and conducting regions 211, are formed in the insulating material layer 2 between the electrode gap arrays.

Fig. 6 (a) is a schematic perspective view of an on-chip array type micro vacuum sensor based on electron tunneling junctions according to the present example, fig. 6 (b) is a schematic diagram showing an insulating material layer in each electrode gap (circle part in fig. 6 (a)) forming an electron tunneling junction, fig. 6 (c) is a cross-sectional view of the vacuum sensor along a dashed line AA' in fig. 5 (a), and an enlarged view of a square dashed line frame in fig. 6 (c) is a cross-sectional view of one of the electrode gaps of the vacuum sensor. The present embodiment has the same constituent elements, positional relationships and working principles as the vacuum sensor described in the second embodiment, and will not be described in detail herein. The difference is that in this embodiment, the substrate surface has a plurality of the electron tunneling junctions arranged in an array, and two adjacent electron tunneling junctions share one electrode pair.

EXAMPLE five

In order to meet the requirements of independent integrity and compactness of the application of the miniature vacuum sensor, accelerate the heat dissipation of the vacuum sensor, maintain the stability of current and realize the direct connection of the vacuum sensor and an external circuit, the embodiment provides the on-chip miniature vacuum sensor system based on the electronic tunneling junction, and the heat sink, the circuit module and the base are respectively added on the basis of the original on-chip miniature vacuum sensor so as to meet the requirements of practical application on the on-chip miniature vacuum sensor.

Fig. 7 (a) is a schematic perspective view of an on-chip micro vacuum sensor based on an electron tunneling junction according to the present embodiment, and fig. 7 (b) is a cross-sectional view of the vacuum sensor along a dashed line AA' in fig. 7 (a). The present embodiment is based on the third embodiment and is provided with a heat sink 4 below the substrate 1, and the heat sink 4 can promote the heat generated by the vacuum sensor to be quickly dissipated through the heat sink. The heat sink 4 is located below the substrate 1 and the connection to the substrate should be in direct close contact to ensure good thermal conductivity between the substrate and the heat sink. A base 5 is arranged below the vacuum sensor, parts (such as a binding post, a pin, a pinhole and the like) which can be connected with an external circuit module are arranged on the base 5, the vacuum sensor (comprising a substrate, a heat sink and a driving electrode) is arranged on the base 5, and the parts (such as the binding post, the pin, the pinhole and the like) on the base are connected with the electrode pair of the vacuum sensor through a connecting wire 53 (such as a welding wire), so that the connection between the vacuum sensor and the circuit module is realized, and the vacuum sensor can be used on an integrated circuit chip. In order to maintain the stability of the conduction current of the vacuum sensor, a circuit module for providing voltage driving, regulating and reading resistance for the electrode pair is added to the on-chip micro vacuum sensor. The base 5 provided at the bottom of the vacuum sensor has components 51 and 52 connected to an external circuit, and a connection line 53 is provided between the component and the vacuum sensor electrode pair. In fig. 7 (a), the external circuit block 6 is used to apply a driving voltage to the electrode pair. The circuit module 6 includes a voltage input terminal 61, a plurality of voltage output terminals 62 and a reading resistor indicating meter 63, and each voltage output terminal 62 is connected to a component on the vacuum sensor base through a connection line 64 (such as a wire), so as to realize voltage driving, regulation and control of the vacuum sensor electrode pair and reading of the resistor. The present embodiment has the same constituent elements, positional relationships and working principles as the vacuum sensor described in the fourth embodiment, and will not be described in detail herein. The difference is that the heat sink, the circuit module and the base are respectively added on the basis of the original on-chip micro vacuum sensor.

It should be noted that, in the present specification, each embodiment is described in a progressive manner, and the same and similar parts among the embodiments are referred to each other, and each embodiment focuses on the differences from the other embodiments.

The foregoing is merely a preferred embodiment of the present application and, although the present application discloses the foregoing preferred embodiments, the present application is not limited thereto. Those skilled in the art can now make numerous possible variations and modifications to the disclosed embodiments, or modify equivalent embodiments, using the methods and techniques disclosed above, without departing from the scope of the claimed embodiments. Therefore, any simple modification, equivalent change and modification made to the above embodiments according to the technical essence of the present application still fall within the protection scope of the technical solution of the present application without departing from the content of the technical solution of the present application.

Claims (9)

1. An on-chip micro vacuum sensor, comprising:

a substrate;

the insulating material layer is positioned on the surface of the substrate and is composed of oxide or nitride, and the insulating material layer can be changed into a conductive state from an insulating state after being subjected to soft breakdown by applying voltage;

and the electrode pair is partially or completely positioned on the insulating material layer, has the insulating material layer in the gap and is changed into a conductive state by soft breakdown.

2. The on-chip micro vacuum sensor as claimed in claim 1, wherein the insulating material layer forms an electron tunneling junction on the inner or surface after soft breakdown by applying a voltage across the electrode pair.

3. The on-chip micro vacuum sensor according to claim 2, wherein the insulating material layer (2) and the electrode pair contacting with both sides thereof are disposed above the substrate, the electron tunneling junction is composed of a first conductive region (210) -an insulating region (212) -a second conductive region (211), and the first conductive region (210) and the second conductive region (211) are respectively connected with one electrode of the electrode pair.

4. The on-chip micro vacuum sensor as claimed in claim 1, wherein the insulating material layer is made of one or more of the following materials: aluminum oxide, silicon oxide, beryllium oxide, tantalum oxide, hafnium oxide, tungsten oxide, zinc oxide, magnesium oxide, zirconium oxide, titanium oxide, nickel oxide, germanium oxide, aluminum nitride, silicon nitride, titanium nitride, tungsten nitride; the electrode pair is selected from one or more of the following materials: metal, graphene, carbon nanotubes, or conductive two-dimensional materials; the substrate is selected from one or more of the following materials: silicon, germanium, silicon oxide, glass, aluminum oxide, beryllium oxide, silicon nitride, aluminum nitride, silicon carbide, diamond, ceramic.

5. The on-chip micro vacuum sensor according to claim 1, wherein the insulating material layer comprises an oxide insulating material layer and a nitride insulating material layer, the oxide insulating material layer forms an electron tunneling junction (21) inside or on the surface after soft breakdown by applying a voltage across the electrode pair, and the nitride insulating material layer forms an electron tunneling junction (2' 1) inside or on the surface after soft breakdown by applying a voltage across the electrode pair.

6. The on-chip micro vacuum sensor as claimed in claim 1, wherein the electrode pair comprises two opposing finger electrodes extending beyond two area electrodes, each of the area electrodes comprising at least one finger electrode.

7. The on-chip micro vacuum sensor as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 6, further comprising a circuit module for supplying a voltage to the pair of electrodes, regulating the voltage, and reading a resistance.

8. The on-chip micro vacuum sensor as claimed in claim 7, further comprising a base, wherein the base provides electrical connection between the electrode pair and the circuit module.

9. A method of manufacturing a micro vacuum sensor on a chip, comprising:

providing a substrate;

preparing an insulating material layer composed of oxide or nitride on the surface of the substrate;

forming an electrode pair or an array of electrode pairs on the substrate, partially or wholly overlying the layer of insulating material, with a gap or array of gaps between the electrode pairs;

applying a voltage to the electrode pair or the electrode pair array causes a soft breakdown of the insulating material layer in the gap between the electrode pairs, causing it to change from an insulating state to a conductive state.

Images