A novel approach to low-power hot-surface devices with decoupled electrical and thermal resistances

This work employs the idea of maintaining a hot surface by means of dissipating power at a nano-scale conductive link. The link is created between two polysilicon electrodes separated by a dielectric (a capacitor-like structure). From modelling, a link of 10 nm in diameter should be possible to maintain the surface temperature ranging between 750 and 1150 K within the surface diameter of 2 μm by absorbing a 3.3 mW of electric power. The devices can also be designed in such a way that the hot surface area is reduced to a sub-μm-size hotspot. The main advantage of the proposed idea is decoupling the electrical resistance and thermal resistance of the device. In this paper, two device structures based on antifuse technology are described. Both the thermo-electrical properties and feasibility to perform as a Pellistor-type gas sensor are discussed