Olszewski, Z,Houlihan, R,Ryan, C,O'Mahony, C,Duane, R

2012

January

Applied Physics Letters

Experimental isolation of degradation mechanisms in capacitive microelectromechanical switches

Validated

()

100

DC and bipolar voltage stresses are used to isolate mechanical degradation of the movable electrode from charging mechanism in microelectromechanical capacitive switches. Switches with different metals as the movable electrode were investigated. In titanium switches, a shift in the pull-in voltages is observed after dc stressing whereas no shift occurs after the bipolar stressing, which is to be expected from charging theory. On switches with similar dielectric but made of aluminium, the narrowing effect occurs regardless if dc or bipolar stressing is used, which indicates the mechanical degradation as the mechanism responsible. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4726116]

ARTN 233505