Metal-insulator transition (MIT) actuators for microswitching applications

Transitional metal oxides have generated considerable interest in electronics and other engineering applications over the last few decades. These materials show several orders of magnitude metal-insulator transition (MIT) when triggered by an external stimuli. In this paper, an MIT (Vanadium Dioxide (VO2)) -based bimorph cantilever shows promising performance due to its large volumetric work density, ultrafast response, and reliability. This this work, we propose and simulate a cantilever actuated via VO2 for a micro-contact switch. Our results show VO2 based actuators show promising performance in terms of deflection, resonance frequency, and lifetime.