Studies on Quasi-Static Au-to-Au Ohmic Contact for MEMS Switches

In this paper, studies on “quasi-static” region of ohmic-contact behavior for MEMS switches under low contact force and low current conditions were carried out. Random telegraph signals (RTS) observed during the transition period were carefully investigated. It is found that RTS in transition region could be consistently identified by multiple characteristic time constants. The RTS behavior with multiple time constants suggests that different contact mechanisms could involve during “quasi-static” contact region. A dominant mechanism with time constant of ~1 ms was observed for the Au-to-Au contacts used in this study.