1 volt, 1 GHz nems switches

It is generally accepted that electromechanical switches have superior off-to-on resistance ratios, very low leakage currents, and sub-threshold slope better than 0.1 mV/decade. It is also well-known that these switches tend to have large foot-print, large turn on voltages, low speeds (at best 0.1 0.01 μs switching time) and are relatively unreliable and fail due to contact resistance variations, particulates, fatigue, and stiction. Here we present a class of nano-electromechanical switches with ~ 1 V turn-on voltage, very high speed of <;1 ns, and very small footprint of around 1 μm².