AFM-Based Testing and Measurements of Contact and Stiction in a Micromechanical Switch

Cycling of a micromechanical switch with gold-on-gold contacts demonstrates that the contact resistance decreases and the adherence force increases. An experimental setup using a Scanning Probe Microscope (SPM) is allowing the fundamental physics of this behavior to be better understood. The setup includes two side-by-side cantilevers — one of high stiffness which applies the repeated loading and the other a standard profiling cantilever allowing in-situ measurements of topographical changes.