RESUMO
Opposite results concerning the sign of the parasitic charge accumulated at the metal dielectric contact in RF microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) capacitive switches are found in the literature. The mechanism concerning charge injection/extraction at the metal-dielectric contact and its influence on the pull-in voltage needs to be further clarified. A model-switch, for which only one dimension is in the microns range, is used to study the behaviour of a capacitive RF MEMS switch. The aim is to analyze how the electric charge is injected/extracted into or from the dielectric material under the applied field and to obtain realistic data to understand how this parasitic charge influences the pull-in voltage Vpi and the pull-off voltage Vpo. A triangle voltage is employed to measure Vpi and Vpo, by measuring the isothermal charging/discharging currents. Our results demonstrate that Vpi is strongly dependent on the injected/extracted charge on the free surface of the dielectric. The charge injected/extracted at the bottom side of the dielectric has no influence on the actuation voltage. The charge injected/extracted on the free surface of the dielectric determines an increase of the modulus of Vpi and, eventually, the switch can fail to actuate. An estimation of the charge stored into the material was obtained (i) by measuring the charging current and the discharging current and (ii) from the value of the Vpi. The parasitic charge necessary to keep the bridge stick to the insulator is 5.3 x 10(-4) C m(-2) for our experimental conditions. The modification of the Vpi determined by the stored charge in the dielectric is analyzed. An increase of the relative dielectric permittivity by a factor of 2 produces a decrease of the actuation voltage of 10%. A variation of 30% in the elastic constant determines a variation of about 20% in the Vpi. A voltage threshold for charge injection/extraction was not observed.
RESUMO
The thermally stimulated current (TSC) signatures of the primary (alpha) transition and its precursor, the Johary-Goldstein (beta) relaxation, are used to probe effects of nanoconfinement on the dielectric relaxation dynamics of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) radically polymerised in situ 50 angstroms mean pore size silica-gel. Nanoconfinement leads to a broadened and low-temperature-shifted beta band (peaking at Tbeta, with deltaTbeta = T(conf.)beta - T(bulk)beta = -15 degrees C for a heating rate of 5 deg/min), signifying the occurrence of faster relaxing moieties compared to the bulk-like PMMA film. Furthermore, both TSCs and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) estimate a rise of the glass transition temperature for the confined phase ([Formula: see text]= +13 degrees C) and an increased width for the corresponding transition signals, relative to the signals in the bulk. Simple free-volume and entropy models seem inadequate to provide a collective description of the above perturbations. The observation of a spatial heterogeneity regarding the relaxation dynamics is discussed in terms of the presence of a motional gradient, with less mobile segments near the interface and more mobile segments in the core, and the interplay of adsorption ( e.g., strong physical interactions that slow down molecular mobilities) and confinement effects ( e.g., lower entanglements concentration and local density fluctuations that provide regions of increased free space). The results suggest that in the case of high-molecular-weight polymers confined in small-pore systems, adsorption effects have considerable bearing on the glass transition phenomenon whereas confinement primarily influences side-chains' rotational mobilities. The confinement effect is expected to dominate over adsorption for PMMA phases occluded in higher pore sizes and silanised walls.