Dielectric charge measurements in capacitive microelectromechanical switches

Measurements of transient currents from the discharge of microelectromechanical capacitive switches after charging the dielectric with an ion gun are reported. It is shown that both the charge sign and the charge amount can be independently measured and that the values can be related to the pull-in shift as measured from C-V characteristics. Several capacitive switches of different sizes were fabricated and subjected to charging and discharging experiments. The analysis of the transients shows that several time constants are governing the charge dynamics, one of them is related to the resistivity-permittivity product of the dielectric.