THE GAS SENSITIVITY OF DEVICE AND EMISSION CURRENTS IN AN ELECTROFORMED MIM DEVICE

It has been found that dosing an electroformed CuSiOx-Cu device with c hloroform leads to an increase in device current at voltages above a c ritical voltage of about 6 V. It is postulated that chloroform molecul es help to release trapped charge which otherwise inhibits the regener ation of conducting filaments in the device. It is also found that the emission current increases more sharply than the device current upon exposure to chloroform and hence it is postulated that the emission of 'hot' electrons is linked to filament regeneration (rather than filam ent rupture as previously believed). The influence of chloroform upon the voltage-dependences both of the device and of the emission charact eristics has also been investigated. We discuss the possible exploitat ion of these effects in gas sensing.