Abstract
© 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd. Nanoelectromechanical (NEM) switches inherently have zero off-state leakage current and nearly ideal sub-threshold swing due to their mechanical nature of operation, in contrast to semiconductor switches. A challenge for NEM switches to be practical for low-power digital logic application is their relatively large operation voltage which can result in higher dynamic power consumption. Herein we report a three-terminal laterally actuated NEM switch fabricated with an amorphous metallic material: tungsten nitride (WNx). As-deposited WNx thin films have high Young's modulus (300 GPa) and reasonably high hardness (3 GPa), which are advantageous for high wear resistance. The first prototype WNx switches are demonstrated to operate with relatively low control voltage, down to 0.8 V for an air gap thickness of 150 nm.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 035202 |
| Journal | Nanotechnology |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 4 2015 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): GRP-CF-2011-08-S, CRG-1-2012-HUS-008
Acknowledgements: We are very grateful to Professor Tsu-Jae King Liu of the University of California at Berkeley for the valuable feedbacks regarding this manuscript. AM was partially supported by KAUST OCRF Award No. GRP-CF-2011-08-S and AMH is supported under KAUST OCRF CRG-1-2012-HUS-008. MMH directed the work. AM worked on fabrication and measured data. AMH worked on the analysis. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.