Adhesion effects on contact opening dynamics in micromachined switches

We propose a technique to measure the opening time for micromachined switches and present substantial experimental data for switches with gold–gold contacts. The data demonstrate that contact opening time increases dramatically as apparent contact area increases or as pull-apart force or contact resistance decreases. A model of opening time is also presented with model parameters that fit the experimental data. Moreover, we show that transient mechanical vibrations can play an important role in reducing switch opening time.

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