Silicon carbide (SiC) nanoelectromechanical switches and logic gates with long cycles and robust performance in ambient air and at high temperature

Abstract

We demonstrate nanoelectromechanical contact-mode switches and logic gates with high performance, enabled by cantilever-structured SiC nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). In full-cycle recording measurements (complete time-domain trace of every single switching cycle recorded), we show that in ambient air, SiC NEMS switches with nanocontacts have operated >1×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">7</sup> cycles of `hot-switching' without failure (devices still alive). When only recording valid `on'/`off' states (without the complete trace, to avoid overflowing data recording and to speed up acquisition), >2×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">10</sup> cycles have been measured. These clearly exhibit the unique properties and advantages of SiC NEMS, amongst all contact-mode, genuinely nanoscale switches. We also show robust switching events at high temperature T~500°C.