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Electrical and Computer Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications
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Micro-Switches With Sputtered Au, Aupd, Au-On-Aupt, And Auptcu Alloy Electric Contacts, Ronald A. Coutu Jr., P. E. Kladitis, R. Cortez, R. E. Strawser, Robert L. Crane
Micro-Switches With Sputtered Au, Aupd, Au-On-Aupt, And Auptcu Alloy Electric Contacts, Ronald A. Coutu Jr., P. E. Kladitis, R. Cortez, R. E. Strawser, Robert L. Crane
Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications
This work is the first to report on a new analytic model for predicting micro-contact resistance and the design, fabrication, and testing of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) metal contact switches with sputtered bi-metallic (i.e. gold (Au)-on-Au-platinum (Pt), (Au-on-Au-(6%)Pt)), binary alloy (i.e. Au-palladium (Pd), (Au-(2%)Pd)), and tertiary alloy (i.e. Au-Pt-copper (Cu), (Au-(5%)Pt-(0.5%)Cu)) electric contacts. The micro-switches with bi-metallic and binary alloy contacts resulted in contact resistance between 1-2 /spl Omega/ and, when compared to micro-switches with sputtered Au electric contacts, exhibited a 3.3 and 2.6 times increase in switching lifetime, respectively. The tertiary alloy exhibited a 6.5 times increase in switch lifetime …