Investigation of integrated solid state nano‐ionic metal–insulator–metal switches for electronically reconfigurable band‐stop filter applications

Abstract

A proof of concept of application of Nano-Ionic Conductive-Bridging Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) switches in electronically reconfigurable band stop filters, through design, and experimental results are presented in this article. Two similar designs of band stop filters with different mechanism of operation are proposed herewith. One is a microstrip, resonant open stub based band stop filter and the other is a microstrip tuned shorted stub based band stop filter. Electrical length of the stubs in both these devices are tuned by an integrated MIM switch forcing them to resonate at different frequencies and thus achieving electronically switchable band stop filtering characteristics. Working mechanism of the devices is validated with the help of developed electrical equivalent circuit models. Analysis on time stability of switch states for 1000 minutes with affirmative results is also presented herewith. These devices are fabricated without any soldered electrical components and without the use of any clean room technologies, using proven low cost method, and are promising to work at very-low power and have the potential to be directly printed on low cost flexible substrates like paper, for potential disposable applications.

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“…This is considered to be a good value for such crude fabrication techniques, in this infancy state, and notably without utilizing any clean room facilities. CBRAM switches fabricated using this technique is also seen to exhibit a considerable stability of achieved impedance states of more than 1000 minutes as reported in [30].…”

“…(d), whose resistance is equal to measured filament resistance across the switch, and capacitance is equal to parallel plate capacitance calculated with respect to electrode cross section area, thickness of ion-conductor and its dielectric properties [11], [22], [27]. Polymer ion conductors like Nafion facilitates realization of CBRAM switches, and electronically reconfigurable RF devices with integrated CBRAM switches in an ambient lab environment outside 'clean room' conditions [11], [16], [27], [30]. Nafion is a flexible ionomer or ion conductor, whose layers could be easily formed by spin coating Nafion resin solution on most substrates.…”

“…CBRAM switches in the design are modeled as their respective electrical models (RC parallel networks as shown in Fig. 2) and their values are chosen using knowledge from previous realizations [11], [27], [30], and are given in Table 1.…”