Insulation for a Thermionic Microbattery

Microelectronmechanical Systems (MEMS) have not gained wide use because they lack the on-device power required by many important applications. To supply this need power, on can consider power from fossil fuels, but nuclear sources provide an intriguing option in terms of power density and lifetime. In order to make use of alpha particles, one is forced to use thermal approaches because diodes are damaged by the high energy of the alpha particles, one is forced to use thermal approaches because diodes are damaged by the high energy of the alphas. One difficulty, though, is that the surface to volume ration increases as we move to smaller scales and heat losses thus become significant at MEMS scales. Hence, efficient microscale insulation is needed to permit high overall efficiencies. This research explores concepts for one variety of microscale insulation created using MEMS fabrication techniques