Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering

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IOP PUBLISHING JOURNAL OF MICROMECHANICS AND MICROENGINEERING
J. Micromech. Microeng. 23 (2013) 025024 (8pp) doi:10.1088/0960-1317/23/2/025024

Curved in-plane electromechanical relay

for low power logic applications
Daniel Grogg, Ute Drechsler, Armin Knoll, Urs Duerig, Yu Pu,
Christoph Hagleitner and Michel Despont
IBM Research—Zurich, Säumerstrasse 4, CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland
E-mail: dgr@zurich.ibm.com, and dpt@zurich.ibm.com

Received 15 October 2012, in final form 23 November 2012

Published 21 January 2013
Online at stacks.iop.org/JMM/23/025024

Abstract
A curved design for in-plane micro- and nano-electromechanical switches based on a single
clamped cantilever is proposed, optimized with finite-element simulations and demonstrated
experimentally. The design enables precise control of the switch motion and of the closed-state
air gap, resulting in a uniform electrostatic field and increased robustness. The switch size and
curvature are optimized for actuation voltage, actuation energy and the electrostatic field
strength. These optimizations and the proposed fabrication process are amenable to micro- and
nano-electromechanical switches. The scalability of the concept is demonstrated with
simulations of nanoscale relays in terms of force and energy, showing that the concept is
suitable for sub-100 aJ switching energy. Experimental results on microscale devices
demonstrate the advantages of the curved MEM switches, namely a fabrication process with a
single sacrificial layer for a switch with a low actuation voltage and excellent robustness. The
designed as well as the experimentally observed breakdown voltage is four times higher than
the contact voltage, thus enabling a large operating window for electromechanical switches.
(Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

1. Introduction
Electromechanical relays can switch electrical currents over
an almost arbitrarily small actuation voltage step with zero
leakage in the off-state, a unique feature that is intensively
researched in view of the ability to replace or complement
current complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)
technology [1–3]. The current modulation depends on the
physical making and breaking of a conductive path, and a
sufficient tunneling barrier is necessary to achieve virtually
zero leakage for small gaps between the electrodes. Such
abrupt current switching enables low-power computation
for energy-sensitive applications [4–6]. Moreover, the
characteristics of electromechanical switches offer potential
for logic operation at high temperature [7] or in ionizing
conditions [8]. Despite these unique attributes, the switching
energy of mechanical relays has to be competitive with
CMOS technology, and optimizations for energy-efficient
actuation are critical for low-power digital logic [9, 6]. Further
optimizations address the mechanical robustness, i.e. the
resilience to gate-beam shortcuts [10], optimizations of the
device layout to reduce the actuation voltage and improve the
bouncing characteristics [11], and analysis of the operating
window as discussed for carbon-nanotube-based switches
[12]. However, little effort has been made to explore the
trade-offs of the different characteristics. In particular, relays
optimized for low actuation voltages tend to be large with
correspondingly large electrodes, thus limiting the integration
density and the mechanical robustness of the devices.
In this paper, we propose a curved in-plane switch and
explore its design space in terms of actuation voltage, operating
window and electrostatic field, switching energy and scaling.
The curved design enables control of the switch motion and
therefore of the closed state gap. As a consequence, the
mechanical robustness toward high gate voltages is greatly
increased, while fabrication is kept simple; the actuation air
gap can be defined with a single sacrificial layer. The general
concept behind the curved shape and a method of designing
such a switch is given in section 2, whereas section 3 shows
the trade-offs for such a structure based on finite-element
method (FEM) simulations. Section 4 is dedicated to an

0960-1317/13/025024+08$33.00 1 © 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK & the USA
J. Micromech. Microeng. 23 (2013) 025024
(a)
(b)
Figure 1. (a) Schematic of a curved switch and a state-of-the-art
straight cantilever (b) with the electrostatic field strength overlaid as
a color gradient (blue: low field, red: high field). Improved control
on the electrostatic field in the closed position is achieved by
inclining the electrode, which leads to superior robustness,
compared with straight cantilevers, where a strong field increase is
observed close to the tip.
experimental demonstration of the design, showing the first
electrical characteristics and high robustness.
2. Design
2.1. Design objectives and layout
A well-designed electromechanical switch should enable low
switching energy, high electrical and mechanical stability, and
good control of the motion and the electrostatic field. In-plane
electromechanical switches benefit from additional design
freedom compared with out-of-plane electromechanical
switches and can be built in stress-free layers such as single
crystal-silicon to achieve this goal. Consecutive deposition
of three material layers can be used to define out-of-plane
switches, offering a way to create very smooth electrode
surfaces and small gap dimensions [13]. Such a nanoscale gap
is necessary to achieve a CMOS competitive switching energy
[6, 14]. However, using a sacrificial layer to define the gap is
also applicable to in-plane switches and offers a comparable
scaling of the gap dimension.
We propose the curved switch design in figure 1(a) as a
three-terminal in-plane relay suitable for a fabrication process
using a sacrificial layer to define the air gap. The curved
design avoids the strongly non-uniform electric field along
the gate observed for straight cantilevers with uniform air
gap dimension shown in figure 1(b) [15, 10]. Control of the
electrostatic field in microelectromechanical (MEM) relays
is not straightforward and is often achieved by defining two
gap dimensions: a larger gap for the actuation electrode and
a small gap over the contact electrode. However, defining
two gap dimensions complicates the fabrication process as
either the definition of a dimple structure [6, 11] or a high-
resolution lithography step is required [16]. Failure to design
2
D Grogg et al
Figure 2. Calculated minimal electrostatic field in the closed
position for a lumped element configuration (inset) based on (4),
resulting in a minimal electrostatic field for β = 30◦ .
a uniform and preferably low electrostatic field can lead to
poor mechanical robustness, which means that even a small
perturbation in the closed position can lead to an unwanted
breakdown of the switch onto its gate electrode.
Inclining each electrode element with respect to the
motion of the beam element, as indicated by the angle β
in figure 1(a), results in a uniform electrostatic field over
the entire gate electrode. The result is in clear contrast to
that of the straight cantilever shown below, where a strong
non-uniformity of the field is observed. The uniform field
can be achieved and maintained throughout the actuation
process independent of the size and the fabrication process,
as it depends only on the angle between a beam element
and its respective direction of motion. Replacing the straight
cantilever with a curved switch has no drawback in terms of
switching energy or actuation voltage, but enables very precise
control of the switch motion and can completely remove the
electromechanical instability, as we will show below.
2.2. Switch construction with an inclined electrode
A one-dimensional lumped element configuration of a switch
with an inclined actuation electrode, as shown in the inset in
figure 2 is first analyzed and later used as a basic element
to construct a curved switch. In the open state, the gaps
toward actuation and contact electrode are equal. However,
after closing the switch with a controlled motion in the
y-direction, a gap of (1-sin(β)) times the initial gap remains
over the actuation:
g1 = g0 (1 − sin(β )), (1)
where g0 is the initial gap and g1 is the remaining gap
in the closed position. The lumped element device can be
modeled with the well-known approaches used for parallel-
plate switches. The pull-in voltage of such a device is

8 km g30 1
VPI = , (2)
27 ε0 Ael sin(β )
J. Micromech. Microeng. 23 (2013) 025024 D Grogg et al

where km is the spring constant, ε0 is the permittivity and

Ael is the actuation electrode area. The critical displacement
(ycritical ) for the electromechanical instability to occur depends
on the angle β and can be completely avoided for small angles
β < 19.47◦ :
1 g0
ycritical = . (3)
3 sin(β )
The electrostatic field in the closed position is obtained
from (1) and (2) as

8 km g30 1 1
Emax  . (4)
27 ε0 Ael sin(β ) g0 (1 − sin(β ))
As a nanometer-scale gap is necessary for low switching
energy, the electrostaic field strength can be very high
(>100 MV m−1 ). Therefore, it is preferable to minimize and
(a)
homogenize the electrostatic field in nanoelectromechanical
(NEM) devices by design to avoid secondary effects, such as
field emission, in the closed state. Figure 2 shows a plot of the
last two terms of (4), indicating a minimal field at β = 30◦ and
acceptably low field around the minimum. High fields occur
for flat structures (β = 90◦ ), where the remaining gap is small,
and for the comb-drive configuration (β = 0◦ ) because of poor
transduction efficiency.

2.3. Iterative construction of a curved switch

The curved switch proposed in this paper combines the idea of
an inclined electrode with the low stiffness and small size of a
cantilever. The idea is to combine a soft hinge with a stiff body
in such a way that the stiff body describes a rotation around the
hinge. Consequently, the motion of any body element describes
a circle, i.e. the direction of motion of any element is the
tangent of the circle. An algorithm can be used to calculate
the angle β at each position and construct the entire switch
structure element by element.
The initial parameters for the algorithm are the center of
rotation, here (0,0) is used for simplicity, the length in the
x-direction, lb , and the desired ratio between the initial gap
and the closed gap, ϑ = g1 /g0 . The position (lb , 0) is used as
the starting position for the switch construction.
To obtain a constant closing ratio ϑ along the beam, a
correction factor of lb /r is added to (1) to account for the
reduced motion caused by the smaller radius. This yields
lb
g1 = g0 (1 − sin(β )), (5)
r the gate electrode, i.e. the air gap, but does not define other
where r is the distance from the center of rotation. The above
equation allows the calculation of β as a function of ϑ, lb and
r. In the Cartesian coordinate system and with the assumption
of a perfect rotation, the angle is also adjusted by the actual
position, and β for a given position (xi , yi ) becomes
   
ϑri yi
βi = arcsin 1 − + arctan . (6)
lb xi
The coordinates of the next line segment are then
xi+1 = xi − sin (βi ) lseg ,
yi+1 = yi + cos (βi ) lseg , (7)
(b)
Figure 3. (a) The curved switch shape as constructed with the
proposed algorithm in a Cartesian coordinate system. The beam
changes from a straight cantilever for ϑ = 0 to an almost perfect
circle (ϑ = 1). The symbols in the figure represent a subset of the
data points used to construct the lines. (b) Schematic of a curved
MEM switch with hinge and tip for ϑ = 0.5 with the relevant design
parameters. The origin of the coordinate system is the point of
rotation (P0 ).
where lseg is the length of an element used in this iterative
construction. Figure 3(a) shows the pattern for different ϑ
values calculated with the above equations. A schematic of
the actual switch layout, including the air gap, the hinge and
the tip region is given in figure 3(b). For ϑ = 0, a straight
cantilever is obtained, whereas ϑ = 1 approximates a perfect
circle; the precision of the approximation depends on lseg . This
algorithm gives the shape of the interface from the switch to
important layout elements of the switch, such as the hinge and
the contact point.
3. Optimization by FEM simulation
3.1. Analysis of the switch design
The curved switch design is analyzed using ANSYS FEM
software. Such an approach is slower than an analytical
calculation, but has advantages in terms of the complexity of
the effects taken into account. The simulations are performed
in three dimensions with the capacitive transduction fully

3
J. Micromech. Microeng. 23 (2013) 025024 D Grogg et al

Figure 4. Tip displacement with increasing voltage in a static
simulation: the electromechanical nonlinearity is gradually
disappearing for increasing ϑ. The angle β0 is indicated in the
legend and gives the inclination of the actuation electrode for the
first (right side) element of the air gap.
modeled by ‘elastic air’ elements (SOLID 226). A frictionless
contact element is used to simulate the switch in the closed
position and to obtain data on the robustness of the switch.
Friction in a real contact is expected to increase the stiffness
of a switch in the closed position. However, friction data are
currently not available, and we therefore omit this effect in
our simulations, resulting in a rather pessimistic robustness
value. Fringing fields are ignored in the current study; however,
their relative contribution to the total force is expected to
increase for nanoscale switches with thin structural layers and
small electrodes. This study concentrates on aspects of the
curved design, in particular the stiffness and switching energy.
Figure 3(b) shows the top view of a switch as modeled, where
lh and wh are the hinge length and width, respectively, lb is
the body length used as starting point for the algorithm, wb is
the beam thickness ( 4×wh ) and g0 is the air gap (50 nm). The
curved switch design optimizations are first demonstrated on
microscale designs because the micro-technology is used for
the experimental demonstration. However, the optimizations
found on the micro-devices are also applied to the simulated
nanoscale devices.
3.1.1. Optimizing ϑ. The switch used for the study case is
designed with lb = 30 μm, lh = 4 μm, and the device is 1 μm
thick. The contact tip is slightly offset from lb to the position
(x = 32.5 μm, y = −1.5 μm); this offset corresponds to the real
design and is given by technological limitations. Only the tip
motion in the y-direction is analyzed in a static simulation
with a voltage resolution of 0.5 mV (ϑ = 0) and 3 mV
(all other results). The electrode length lel is 25 μm, starting
from the point (x = 30 μm, y = 0 μm) and following the
curvature, i.e. all designs analyzed have an equal capacitance
in the initial position. The influence of ϑ on the displacement
characteristics is shown in figure 4 for different values of
ϑ. As expected, the electromechanical instability gradually
disappears with increasing ϑ, whereas the variation of the gate
capacitance between the initial position and the closed position
Figure 5. Change of the gate capacitance during actuation for
differently curved switches showing an increase of the actuation
voltage and a decrease of the capacitance in the closed position. The
robustness of the switch to high gate voltages grows with increasing
ϑ. The symbols in this figure represent a subset of the simulation
points used to construct the lines.
Figure 6. The electrical and mechanical energies in a curved switch
vary only slightly for an increasing ratio ϑ, but a strong decrease of
the electrostatic field is observed with increasing ϑ, leading to
higher robustness. Optimal curvatures are from 0.2 for low-energy
operation to 0.7 for instability-free operation of the switch.
decreases. Hence, the contact voltage increases from 1.04 to
1.67 V with increasing ϑ.
The smaller closed-state gate capacitance during actuation
is visualized in figure 5 for different closing ratios ϑ.
Eliminating the tapered air gap in the closed position
reduces the ON-capacitance from 13.6 to 7.1 fF and greatly
improves the robustness of the switch in the closed state by
removing the critically high field at the outer edge of the gate
electrode. The breakdown in the simulations is caused by the
pull-down of the cantilever onto the gate electrode at high
voltage, which improves by 7.5 V for this simulation. A thicker
beam with wb of 5 μm has been used for ϑ of 0.7, because the
long arc of the curved switch with high ϑ-values can result in
a lower stiffness and breakdown at lower voltage.
Figure 6 shows the extracted values for the electrostatic
field as well as the electrostatic and mechanical energies

4
J. Micromech. Microeng. 23 (2013) 025024
Figure 7. Actuation voltage, gate capacitance and effective stiffness
at the tip for selected switch designs for varying switch lengths and
hinge lengths (green: 6 μm, red: 2 μm, black: 1 μm). The switching
energy for switches fabricated with a 50 nm air gap is in the femto
joule range, as indicated by the dotted lines. The symbols in this
figure represent a subset of the simulation points used to construct
the lines.
in the system at contact. In an ideal design, only the
y-direction stiffness is important for breaking the contacts;
therefore, the equivalent stiffness at the tip normal to the
contact point has been extracted and used to calculate the
mechanical switching energy. The electrical energy stored in
the parallel-plate capacitor is extracted from the simulation
and is reported on the same y-axis. The average electrostatic
field is extracted at the outermost 1 μm long section of the
gate-to-cantilever overlap, where the largest motion occurs in
a straight cantilever.
As expected, the stiffness is mainly given by the hinge
and is between 2.46 and 2.40 N m−1 . The electrical energy
at contact reduces slightly for small ϑ before increasing for
higher curvatures. This can be understood as the result of
two competing effects: the reduction of the nonlinearity leads
to higher efficiency because the beam can be brought into
contact gently; however, the electrostatic force no longer acts
parallel to the motion and thus reduces the efficiency. Overall
the switching energy variation is quite small, with an optimum
for ϑ around 0.2. Investigation of the electrostatic field clearly
shows the advantage of the curved design: the field strength
is reduced by more than ×4. This fact highlights again the
advantage of the curved design and suggests that a ϑ-value
above the optimal energy point should yield the best result in
term of robustness.
3.1.2. Size and stiffness. The hinge length, lh , and the body
length, lb , of the switch are the two main design parameters to
adjust the stiffness and the actuation voltage of the switch to
the desired values. Figure 7 gives the capacitance values during
the motion for switch designs based on a 1 μm lithography
with lengths of 10, 20 and 40 μm and hinges of 1, 2 and
6 μm. The effective spring stiffness varies in a range from
5
D Grogg et al
0.9 to 49 N m−1 and determines the switching energy of the
device, e.g., two switches with nearly equal spring constants
of 3.2 and 3.4 N m−1 consume 14 and 15 fJ, respectively,
because the switching energy is approximately proportional to
the mechanical energy given by 1/2km g20 . The switch size is
an appropriate means to decrease the operating voltage, thus
decreasing power consumption caused by a capacitive load.
Complex and stiff hinges can be designed without impacting
the design method as long as the stiffness of the switch body
is higher than that of the hinge, thus ensuring that the bending
motion occurs over the hinge region. Note that the change
of switch size may have some unwanted side effects, such
as an increase of the flexion of the switch body (robustness),
an increase of the switch mass (switching speed) and larger
parasitic capacitances.
3.2. Scaling potential of the switch design
Device miniaturization is a requirement for high integration
densities and lower energy consumption for mechanical
switches, similar to CMOS devices. The scaling potential of
NEM switches with a metal–metal contact was investigated
previously and it was shown [14] that a minimal restoring
force on the order of 5 to 10 nN is necessary to overcome
the adhesive forces in a metal–metal asperity contact with a
contact resistance of 2 k. This force criterion is derived from
a free electron model for the electrical conductivity and the
surface interaction. An important property of metal contacts is
the presence of a distinct adhesion hysteresis, which arises
from plastic flow in the contact leading to the formation of
a neck [17]. During the opening of the switch, the neck is
elongated and thinned down in a quasi-continuous manner,
whereby the cross section shrinks approximately exponentially
with the neck elongation [18]. Note that the characteristic
length scale for plastic neck thinning is on the order of 1 nm,
i.e. much larger than the typical range of interaction of 0.05
to 0.2 nm for metallic adhesion forces [19]. This property is
responsible for the fact that the adhesive neck forces are much
smaller than expected from direct bonding forces.
A contact resistance of 2 k requires that six conduction
channels be active, which corresponds to a minimum contact
cross section comprising six atoms. Therefore, one expects
the overall contact adhesion energy to be on the order of 6 aJ
(1 aJ per atom). It has been shown [14], however, that the
minimum switching energy scales as the contact adhesion
force times the width of the air gap in the actuator. Therefore,
the actuation energy will be much larger than the bare adhesion
energy of the contact unless the air gap is comparable to
the range of interaction, namely 1 nm. The scaling analysis
presented in figure 8 is based on a minimum mechanical
restoring force of 10 nN, which is sufficient to overcome the
adhesion forces of a 2 k contact. Forming such small metal
contacts is a challenging technological problem in itself, which
is not discussed here.
Three fabrication technologies capable of creating critical
dimensions of 1 μm, 100 and 30 nm are considered for this
study. The corresponding air gap is expected to shrink first
from 50 nm down to 10 and 20 nm and later to 5 and 10 nm
J. Micromech. Microeng. 23 (2013) 025024
Figure 8. Prospective designs for different technologies with critical
dimensions of 1 μm, 100 nm and 30 nm demonstrate a reduction of
the switching power by nearly two decades for an air gap scaling
down to 5 nm. The symbols in this figure represent a subset of the
simulation points used to construct the lines.
for improved lithography. The expected switching energy
decreases with improvements of the technology; in particular,
we predict sub-100 aJ operation of mechanical switches for
an air gap of 5 nm. The drawback is a drastic reduction of the
restoring force to the critical limit of about 10 nN, reducing the
tolerance toward permanent stiction and requiring good control
of the contact size and properties. This analysis highlights the
importance of the technology development for NEM switches
and predicts low switching energy while conserving the abrupt
on–off characteristic. In addition, the curved switch design is
compatible with scaling the lateral dimensions and the gap,
and can deliver a sufficient stiffness at any size.
4. Experimental results
4.1. Fabrication
To validate our model we have fabricated corresponding
microscale switches using the process flow illustrated in
figure 9. Silicon on insulator (SOI) substrates with a 800 nm
silicon device layer having a low doping of about 1014
atoms cm−3 on top of a buried oxide layer of 1 to 3 μm
have been used. The fabrication schematic shows a cross
section through the suspended beam and the gate region. (a)
First, a thermal oxide (SiO2 ) is grown on top, serving as a
hard-mask for patterning. (b) The switch shape is transferred
into the SiO2 and into the silicon by two consecutive DRIE
step optimized for achieving smooth and vertical sidewall. (c)
To form a conducting platinum-silicide (PtSi) layer on the
sidewall, the native oxide is removed with a short buffered
oxide etch (BOE); then platinum is evaporated onto the wafer
under an angle. During the subsequent annealing at 400 ◦ C, the
silicon diffuses into the platinum only on the lateral sidewalls,
the SiO2 does not react with platinum. The excess platinum is
removed with a precisely timed aqua regia etch, avoiding the
6
D Grogg et al
(a) (d)
(b) (e)
(c) (f )
Figure 9. Process flow: (a) SOI substrate with SiO2 hard mask, (b)
structuring of the curved switch, (c) formation of the PtSi conductive
layer, (d) deposition of the SiO2 sacrificial layer (air gap) and of a
Cu seed layer, (e) Au plating to form the gate and drain electrodes
and ( f ) etching of the excess Cu and release of the switch in BOE.
Figure 10. SEM image showing the top view of a curved switch
(ϑ = 0.5) with close-ups of the contact tip in the open and the
closed actuation state.
degradation of the PtSi. (d) A 50 nm sacrificial SiO2 -layer is
deposited to form a uniform, lithography-independent air gap.
Directional evaporation of copper onto the patterned substrate
combined with a short copper etch to remove residues from
the lateral surface produces a uniform film on the horizontal
surfaces and no copper on the vertical surfaces. The copper
is used as a seed layer for the electroplating process. (e) The
shape of the metal gate and drain electrodes is defined with
a resist mold aligned with the switch shape. Plating of gold
occurs only from the lower horizontal surface. The sidewall
and the top of the structures show no gold residues after the
process. However, the plating needs to be stopped before it
reaches the Cu on top of the switch. (f) The excess copper is
removed with a wet etch step before the final release in BOE.
Figure 10 shows an SEM top view micrograph of a
29.5 μm curved switch with close-ups of the contact point
in the open and the closed position. The curved switch
is anchored on the left side with a hinge consisting of
three beam elements. The switch body is several micrometer
wide with a regular pattern of release holes formed over the
J. Micromech. Microeng. 23 (2013) 025024
Figure 11. Tilted-view SEM image of the curved switch (ϑ = 0.5).
(a)
(b)
Figure 12. (a) ID − VG characteristics of a fabricated MEM switch
with six decades of on/off ratio at 1 mV show a characteristic
hysteresis between the contact voltage (arrow up) and pull-out
voltage (arrow down) when sweeping the gate voltage up and down,
while (b) little dependence of the contact resistance on pressure is
observed. The symbols in this figure represent a subset of the
measured data points.
entire structure, whereas drain and gate electrode remain fixed
on the buried oxide. The PtSi forms a thin layer on the outline
of the structure, clearly visible in the close-up of the contact
region. The contact is shaped as a round apex at the tip to reduce
the effective contact area to values below the critical dimension
of the lithography. A tilted view of a 15.5 μm curved switch
is shown in figure 11. The Au-electrode plating is adjusted in
height to match the thickness of the Si/PtSi switch.
4.2. Electrical characterization
The ID − VG characteristic shown in figure 12 is measured
on a device as shown in figure 10 which has an equivalent
stiffness of 31.8 N m−1 . Simulations confirm that the air gap
is in the range of 50 to 70 nm and reproduce the observed
7
D Grogg et al
(a)
(b)
Figure 13. (a) ID − VG characteristics of a fabricated MEM switch
with its contact hysteresis (arrow up: contact, arrow down: release).
(b) Destructive testing to high gate voltage proves the robustness of
the design up to 35.8 V. The symbols in this figure represent a subset
of the measured data points.
contact voltage characteristic well. The current–voltage (I–V)
characteristics exhibits very abrupt switching characteristics
at low drain voltages with more than six decades of on/off
ratio even at a VD of 1 mV (see figure 12(a)). The off
current is limited by the noise floor of the measurement
setup. The switching characteristics show a nearly linear
behavior over two decades of drain voltage, indicating that
the current is limited by the series resistance caused by the
PtSi. Moreover, increasing the gate voltage beyond the contact
voltage increases the drain current slightly, as can be seen in
figure 12(b). The pull-off voltage is nearly independent of the
drain voltage and drain current levels in this voltage range or,
in other words, the adhesion force does not vary strongly with
the drain voltage.
The total resistance observed for this switch at VG of 20 V
is between 4.4 to 4.6 k for 1 to 100 mV, respectively. The
series resistance of the PtSi is difficult to estimate and extract
from the total resistance, as the cross section of the PtSi is
not uniform. The resistivity of the PtSi extracted from the
test structures is on the order of 60 μ cm, in accordance
with reported values [20]. However, the PtSi contacts of
the switches systematically required a forming phase of several
volts before achieving a contact resistance in the k range
as reported in figure 12. Without such a forming phase,
non-ohmic contacts are observed. This is attributed to an
unexpected barrier layer; more investigations are currently
underway to improve the contact quality and reliability.
The improved robustness of the curved switch design is
demonstrated in figure 13, where a switch design as that shown
in figure 11 is tested under high gate voltage conditions. The
switch is brought into contact at a voltage of approximately
8 to 9 V, and cycling of the switch to more than twice the
J. Micromech. Microeng. 23 (2013) 025024
contact voltage does not damage the switch and results in
a reliable pull-out (figure 13(a)). Driving the switch with
a high gate voltage to test its robustness results in a gate
voltage of 35.8 V before failure, as shown in figure 13(b). This
gives a large operating window for this switch with ϑ of 0.5,
and designs with smaller ratios will still result in reasonable
operating windows. This is an important attribute for logic
concepts including complex gates, where tolerances of the
contact voltage have to be considered.
5. Conclusion
The curved in-plane switch design is suitable for micro- and
nano-electromechanical relays, enables a simple fabrication
process, and results in area-efficient and robust devices.
Control of the electrostatic field in the air gap is achieved
by choosing the curvature of the switch; this has nearly no
impact on the switching energy or the actuation voltage. A
more than fourfold reduction of the electrostatic field and a
fivefold improvement of the operating window are achieved
in simulation. Moreover, we show that the scaling potential of
the device is promising because the design is compact and
fabrication is based on a single sacrificial layer to define
the air gap in a non-lithographic way. This will lead to
switching energies below 100aJ for an air gap of 5 nm and
low actuation voltages, competitive with CMOS technology,
but with the advantage of virtually no leakage in the OFF
state. Experimental switches with a low actuation voltage and
high ON current have been reported. In particular, the large
operating window of the new design is demonstrated with a
breakdown voltage that is nearly four times higher than the
contact voltage.
Acknowledgments
The work was supported by the European Union’s
Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2011) under grant
agreement no. 288670.
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