We publish reasonably good number of papers but this is the
one I am so jubilantly happy! Abdulilah has got his first paper published in
IoP nanotechnology (impact factor in 2013: 3.68) and thanks to Aftab and Prof.
Tsu Jae King Liu of UC Berkeley for their surreal help. Additionally, this is
the first paper we are publishing based on our amorphous metal based
nanoelectromechanical (NEM) switch.
3-Terminal Nanoelectromechanical Switch Based On Tungsten
Nitride – An Amorphous Metallic Material
Abdulilah M. Mayet, Aftab M. Hussain and Muhammad M. Hussain
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 3-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.
Hope there will be two more soon in this area!