Investigation of thermally activated charging effects in RF-MEMS switches

The paper presents the investigation of the temperature dependence of the charging mechanism in RF-MEMS switch insulating layer. The accumulated charge kinetics has been monitored through the transient response of the device capacitance. The transient response is shown to follow rather a stretched exponential law than an exponential one. The time scale of the process is found to be thermally activated, with an activation energy that is determined from Arrhenius plot. This allows the determination of the time constant of the contributing mechanism at room temperature.