Switching properties of electromechanically bistable and multistable bridges for nonvolatile memory applications

The nonvolatile NEMS memory concept is based on the electro-mechanical bistability of the sub-¿m-long NEMS structure (Fig. 1). It features a buckled SiO₂ bridge which is suspended in the cavity and incorporates the Si nanodots (SiNDs) as single-electron storage. The bridge flips by applying the gate electric field, and its flip-flop motion may be sensed electrically by MOSFET underneath. In this paper, we first experimentally investigated the electromechanical switching properties of the buckled SiO₂ bridges as there has virtually been no systematic study on such electromechanically bistable and multistable switches.