New Experimental Approach for Measuring Electrical Contact Resistance with an Accurate Mechanical Actuation, Evaluation of the Performances of Gold Micro-switches

摘要

A specific experimental setup combining nanoindentation and electrical inputs has been developed in order to determine the reliability and the performances of Micro-ElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) like micro-switches. The evolution of the electrical resistance with respect to a mechanical solicitation applied on the contact, is henceforth available. The description of the setup goes with a brief overview of the tests performed on a gold ohmic switch. A discussion is developed considering the mechanisms involved in the contact response. A confrontation among the experimental results, the analytical modeling and also finite-element analysis is presented.