Vacuum bouncing dynamics dominated by van der Waals forces in MEMS relays

This paper reports a MEMS relay with high reliability, in which van der Waals forces will be used, for the first time, to significantly suppress the vacuum contact bouncing. The dynamic analysis has been carried out by modeling the microcantilever as a multi-segment beam. In the model, van der Waals forces as an adhesive force replace air damping to represent the suppression term. In combination with a dual-pulse actuation waveform implemented by simple logic circuits, the contact bounces were eventually eliminated by making a soft landing.