Investigation Into Self Actuation Limitation and Current Carrying Capacity of Chalcogenide Phase Change GeTe-Based RF Switches

This article reports investigation of self-actuation in phase change material (PCM) germanium telluride (GeTe)-based radio frequency (RF) switches as a limitation to RF power handling. PCM switches are fabricated in-house with multiple design dimensions for evaluation and testing under various RF power levels. RF power handling capability and maximum dc current carrying capacity in the ON-state of the switches is studied for four different device layouts. Self-actuation in the OFF-state is reported at varying input RF power and dc voltage levels. A tradeoff between RF power handling capacity and device performance is discussed, establishing a correlation between design parameters and the power handling. The improved PCM switches exhibit a record high continuous wave (CW) RF power handling capability ranging from +35.5 to +39.2 dBm.