Investigating the benefits of a compliant gold coated multi-walled carbon nanotube contact surface in micro-electro mechanical systems switching

摘要

The application of a metal-carbon nanotube composite consisting of Au sputtered coated multi-walled carbon nanotubes as an electrical contact has been shown to greatly improve the lifetime and switching characteristics. A benefit of this contact surface is shown here to be the compliance of the composite, which allows the contact to conform the shape of its opposite counterpart and increase apparent contact area. The improvement of the lifetime is shown to be affected by the contact force applied, with a limit at 4.5 mN where the composite begins to fail under "hot switching" conditions (0.4 W) at only 1.5 × 10~6, an order of magnitude lower than at 4mN.