The electro-mechanical responses of suspended graphene ribbons for electrostatic discharge applications

Abstract

This work presents a suspended graphene ribbon device for electrostatic discharge (ESD) applications. The device structure was proposed and fabricated after careful design considerations. Compared to the conventional ESD devices such as diodes, bipolar junction transistors, and metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors, the proposed device structure is believed to render several advantages including zero leakage, low parasitic effects, fast response, and high critical current density. A process flow was developed for higher yield and reliability of the suspended graphene ribbons. Direct current (DC) and transmission-line pulse (TLP) measurements were carried out to investigate the switching behavior of the device, which is crucial for ESD operation. DC measurements with a different configuration were used to assess the mechanical shape evolution of the graphene ribbon upon biasing. Finite Element Simulations were conducted and agreed well with the experimental results. Furthermore, the current carrying capability of non-suspended graphene ribbons was tested using TLP. It was found that the critical current density of graphene is higher than that of copper wires widely used as interconnects in integrated circuits (ICs).

Comparative study between the fracture stress of poly‐ and single‐crystalline graphene using a novel nanoelectromechanical system structure

“…where E is the Young's modulus, d is the distance of the air gap at zero bias, t is the thickness of graphene, ɛ 0 is the free space electrical permittivity, and L is the length of the ribbon. This device's capability of electrostatic actuation has been demonstrated and confirmed through DC and transmission line pulse testing for electrostatic discharge protection [12][13][14].…”

“…However, at a threshold called the pull-in voltage (V pull-in ), the mechanical restoring force is no longer able to balance the electrostatic force, causing graphene to collapse and make contact with the floor. V pull-in is dependent on the device geometry and whose equation is given by [11,12] V pull-in…”

Enabling 3D Heterogeneous Structures Towards Smart Chips: A Review

“…This novel above-IC nano crossbar array ESD switch structure can potentially resolve all challenging problems associated with the conventional in-Si PN-based ESD protection structures. Figure 14 shows the second novel above-IC ESD protection structure, which is a graphene-based NEMS (gNEMS) switch ESD protection device fabricated in the CMOS BEOL stack [29,30]. This new graphene gNEMS ESD switch is a two-terminal device, entirely different from conventional in-Si PN-based ESD protection devices.…”

A Review on Applications of Two-Dimensional Materials in Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

“…To achieve high SERS enhancement factors, many efforts have been devoted to develop various metallic (mainly Au and Ag) nanostructures to enhance the local electromagnetic field [8][9][10][11][12]. Two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as graphene and molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ), have unique electronic and optical properties and thus attract wide interests in their potential applications in electronic devices, sensors, and energy generation [13][14][15][16][17][18]. In addition to the above-mentioned applications, graphene and other 2D materials have also been explored to enhance Raman signals [13,[19][20][21][22].…”