Microrelays With Bidirectional Electrothermal Electromagnetic Actuators and Liquid Metal Wetted Contacts

Author

Cao, Andrew ; Yuen, Phyllis ; Lin, Liwei

Author_Institution

KLA-Tencor Corp., San Jose

Volume

16

Issue

3

fYear

2007

fDate

6/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

700

Lastpage

708

Abstract

Microrelays with liquid metal wetted contacts have been demonstrated using bidirectional electrothermal electromagnetic actuators. These relays were fabricated with the Metal MUMPs foundry process, which has a 20-mum-thick nickel structural layer. The operating voltage is under 0.5 V. The measured breakdown voltage and off-state resistance are greater than 200 V and 100 MOmega, respectively, and the gold-to-gold contact resistance is around 0.3 Omega. When the contacts are wetted with liquid gallium alloy (melting point at -20degC), the measured contact resistance can be as low as 0.015 Omega. As such, these bidirectional relays could have potential applications in high-power switching systems with low contact resistance using liquid metal wetted contacts.

Keywords

contact resistance; electromagnetic actuators; gallium alloys; gold; liquid metals; microactuators; micromachining; microrelays; nickel; Au - Interface; MetalMUMPs foundry process; Ni - Element; bidirectional electrothermal electromagnetic actuators; bidirectional microrelays; contact resistance; liquid gallium alloy; liquid metal wetted contacts; size 20 mum; Actuators; Breakdown voltage; Contact resistance; Electrical resistance measurement; Electrothermal effects; Foundries; Microrelays; Nickel; Relays; Voltage measurement; Bidirectional actuators; MetalMUMPs; electromagnetic; electrothermal; liquid metal; microrelays;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microelectromechanical Systems, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1057-7157

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JMEMS.2007.893520

Filename

4276794