The effect of temperature on dielectric charging of capacitive MEMS

Abstract

The present paper investigates the effect of temperature on the charging process in dielectric films of MEMS capacitive switches. The investigation includes the assessment of MIM capacitors and MEMS capacitive switches. The data analysis shows that the dielectric charging is thermally activated and the process can be described by a system with a wide distribution of relaxation times that exhibits power-law relaxation. The activation energies obtained from MIM and MEMS are attributed to different charge collection mechanisms.