Capacitive and ohmic microelectromechanical switches with bridges made of spring stell, especially for application in high frequency systems

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Edmund P. Burte; Professor Dr.-Ing. Abbas Omar
• Subject Area: Microsystems ; Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 233756290

The scientific programm of this proposal embraces design, development, optimization and characterization of electrostatically activated capacitive and ohmic microelectromechanical switches (MEMS-switch) by use of spring steel for the bridges of the switches. These bridges will be fabricated in a monolithic way by sputtering of sprong steel and in a hybrid way by bonding of pre-structured spring steel foils to a substrate. For both approaches, the capacitive and ohmic MEMS-bridges will be modified by application of additional electrical and thermaly highly conductive metal films. At least for the monlithic approach, MEMS-bridges consisting of three parts, a spring part (made of spring steel), a contact part (made of Silver, e.g.) and a second spring part (made of spring steel) will be investigated and characterized.These MEMS-swithces will be applied to tunable and reconfigurable microwave filter and antenna structures.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Dr.-Ing. Reinhard Mikuta