An optimum strategy for the low voltage operation of the mechanical switch

A study of the effective scaling of the pull-in operation voltage (VP) in a nano electro-mechanical (NEM) switch device was carried out. The atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique which can stably build a gap was used to form a sub-10 nm nanogap without stiction. Here, the use of a dielectric layer with a high dielectric constant (high-k) effectively reduced VP via an increase in the electrostatic force. The geometric dependency was analyzed in an experiment with various dimensions. Also, the change of VP was interpreted by numerical equation-based modeling. Thus, this study suggests a guideline related to the feasibility of the low-voltage operation and effective scaling down of a NEM switch.