Carbon nanofiber switches and sensors

In this paper, we describe the implementation of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) for nano-electro-mechanical-systems (NEMS), which have potential applications in switches and resonant sensors. The CNFs, synthesized using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), are vertically oriented which can enable the formation of 3D NEMS structures for enhanced integration densities compared to 2D planar NEMS. We describe the material and device characterization results of these vertically oriented CNFs. Mechanical testing on individual CNFs shows that these structures are extremely elastic and well-adhered to the substrate, making them very attractive for enabling robust 3D NEMS architectures.