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research article

Design and Manufacturing of an Electrostatic MEMS Relay for High Power Applications

Copt, Florian Louis  
•
Civet, Yoan René Cyrille  
•
Köchli, Christian  
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January 15, 2021
Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

This paper addresses the design and manufacturing of a crab-leg based MEMS relay for a high power application. Thanks to a contact resistance lower than 100 mΩ, the relay can hold a current in the order of magnitude of an Ampere without further thermal limitation for the final application. First, an analytical model of the relay, considering its geometry and the contact resistance, is presented. The model is developed in order to focus on the contact deformation. It ensures a low bending moment due to the target contact deformation below 1 nm reducing thus the contact resistance. The design has also been done to overcome the internal resonance frequencies of the future application, i.e. electrical motor. Then, a novel manufacturing process for thicker MEMS is proposed based on micro-fabrication techniques. Finally, the performances of the relay are evaluated and a contact resistance as low as 65 mΩ (comparable to the state-of-the-art) for an applied force of 5 mN, much lower than values reported in the literature is presented.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1016/j.sna.2021.112569
Author(s)
Copt, Florian Louis  
Civet, Yoan René Cyrille  
Köchli, Christian  
Perriard, Yves  
Date Issued

2021-01-15

Published in
Sensors and Actuators A: Physical
Volume

321

Start page

1

End page

9, 112569

Subjects

Contact resistance

•

Electrostatic

•

High power

•

MEMS

•

Relay

Note

This is an Open Access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LAI  
Available on Infoscience
January 25, 2021
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/174935
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