Bipolar microelectronic device

A system to modulate electric current, the system comprising:

• a substrate;
• a sealed packaging enclosing at least a surface of the substrate forming a partial vacuum environment between the sealed packaging and the surface of the substrate;
• a bipolar microelectronic device disposed on the surface of the substrate in the partial vacuum environment, the bipolar microelectronic device comprising,
• an electron source electrode that provides a flow of electrons;
• an ionizable gas in the partial vacuum environment, at least a portion of the ionizable gas forming ion particles in response to impact with the electrons from the electron source electrode, the ion particles having a positive electric charge;
• a first bias electrode and a second bias electrode that form an electric field gradient in a path of the flow of electrons in response to an application of a bias voltage differential between the first and second bias electrodes;
• a collector electrode that collects more electrons than ion particles in response to a collector electrode input voltage being above a threshold and collects more ion particles than electrons in response to the collector electrode input voltage being below the threshold;
• and
• a plurality of electrical connections of the substrate, the electrical connections in electrical communication with the bipolar microelectronic device to provide the collector electrode input voltage to the collector electrode and to receive an output voltage from the collector electrode.

A method for modulating electric current, the method comprising:

• providing a flow of electrons from an electron source in a partial vacuum environment;
• forming ion particles from an ionizable gas in the partial vacuum environment in response to impacting the ionizable gas with the electrons, the ion particles having a positive electric charge;
• applying a bias voltage differential between first and second bias electrodes in the partial vacuum environment to form an electric field gradient in a path of the flow of electrons;
• collecting more electrons than ion particles at a collector electrode in the partial vacuum environment in response to a collector electrode input voltage being above a threshold;
• collecting at least a portion of the electrons at the first bias electrode in response to the collector electrode input voltage being below the threshold, the first bias electrode having a positive voltage;
• collecting more ion particles than electrons at the collector electrode in the partial vacuum environment in response to the collector electrode input voltage being below the threshold;
• and
• collecting at least a portion of the ion particles at the second bias electrode in response to the collector electrode input voltage being above the threshold, the second bias electrode having a negative voltage.