We propose a micromachined device that utilizes the field-emission (FE) phenomenon as a mean to modulate signal for radio-frequency microelectromechanical system applications. In this article, we present the stationary reference (SR) device and the resonator-embedded (RE) device and compare their field-emission performances. The SR device contains no moving part and is used to examine the conditions to excite field emission. The RE device has an embedded microresonator of bandpass filter characteristic. Due to enhanced tip sharpness and closer gap, initial results show that compared to the SR device, the FE cur-rent of the RE device has been increased by 192 times under the same anode-cathode potential difference of 240 V and 2 X 10(-8) Torr vacuum level. (c) 2006 American Vacuum Society.