Metal Insulator Metal Diodes Fabricated on Flexible Substrates (original) (raw)

Study of Microwave Circuits Based on Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) Diodes on Flex Substrates

This paper demonstrates fabrication and characterization of thin-film Ti-TiO 2-Pd based Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) diodes on flexible substrates. MIM diodes with contact areas of 9 μm 2 and 48 μm 2 were fabricated, and a comparison is made for their DC and RF performances. The current-voltage characteristics of the fabricated diodes show strong non-linearity. The diodes are also tested for microwave circuit applications such as detection, frequency multiplication and mixing over a frequency range of 1-18 GHz. The devices show strong second harmonic frequency multiplication for fundamental frequencies of 1-10 GHz. Details of DC characteristics, RF rectification, mixing and multiplication using MIM diodes are presented.

CNT and Graphene based Diodes for Microwave and Millimeter wave Circuits on Flexible Substrates

This paper presents the fabrication and characterization of carbon nanomaterials, i.e., carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and reduced graphene oxide (r-GO), based diodes on flexible substrates for high-frequency circuit applications. CNTs and graphene are good candidates as they possess excellent electronic and mechanical properties. For high-frequency circuits, diodes with lower parasitics and optimal impedance are required to achieve a high cutoff frequency and ease of impedance matching. Here, multiple CNTs are arranged in parallel to reduce the series resistance and to lower the impedance value, whereas 2-D graphene readily provides the desired impedance values. CNT and r-GO diodes with dissimilar metal contacts are fabricated using a novel process on high-frequency-compatible flexible substrates. The process utilizes an undercut and self-alignment approach that allows fabrication of submicrometer-size devices using an all-photolithographic process. The fabricated diodes demonstrate nonlinear current-voltage characteristics with current in the microampere range. Both types of diodes work efficiently as microwave rectifiers showing a near-ideal behavior with a rectification sensitivity of 4 V/W (18 GHz) and 33 V/W (22 GHz) for the CNT and r-GO, respectively. In addition, the results for r-GO-based frequency multiplication at fundamental frequencies ranging from 2 to 6 GHz and frequency mixing for 1.5 and 1.0 GHz are also presented.

High-performance rectifiers fabricated on a flexible substrate

Applied Physics Letters, 2016

We report on the fabrication and testing of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diodes on a flexible substrate where the thin insulating layer self-assembles as a monolayer sandwiched between the two metal electrodes. The current-voltage characteristic has a strong asymmetry and non-linearity at zero-bias.

An Ultrathin Organic Insulator for Metal–Insulator–Metal Diodes

IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 2016

The design and fabrication metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diodes using an ultra-thin organic insulator is presented. The insulating layer was found to be compact, highly conformal, and uniform, effectively overcoming the main design challenge in MIM diodes. The diodes have strong non-linear current-voltage characteristics with a typical zero-bias curvature coefficient 5.4 V-1 and a voltage responsivity of 1.9 kV/W at a frequency of 1 GHz. The fabrication of the diodes only requires lowtemperature processing, is cost effective, and can potentially be ported to large-area roll-to-roll manufacturing.

Higher Performance Metal-Insulator-Metal Diodes using Multiple Insulator Layers

It is found that by repeating two insulator layers with different electron affinities and keeping the total insulator thickness constant, the asymmetry and nonlinearity values can have significant impact on the behavior of Metal-Insulator-Metal diodes. The asymmetry value of a diode with a double insulator layer was recorded as 3, however, for a quadra insulator layer diode; the asymmetry value was recorded as high as 90. The new MIM diode design promises a strong impact on emerging applications such as energy harvesting from fast switching electromagnetic waves.

Impact of strain on radio frequency characteristics of flexible microwave single-crystalline silicon nanomembrane p-intrinsic-n diodes on plastic substrates

Applied Physics Letters, 2010

This letter presents radio frequency (rf) characterization of flexible microwave single-crystalline silicon nanomembrane (SiNM) p-intrinsic-n (PIN) diodes on plastic substrate under various uniaxial mechanical tensile bending strains. The flexible single-crystalline SiNM PIN diode shows significant/negligible performance enhancement on strains under forward/reverse operation modes from dc to 20 GHz. An rf strain equivalent circuit model is developed to analyze the underlying mechanism and reveals unproportional device parameters change with bending strains (∼0.4% tensile strain induces ∼10% change for diode internal and parasitic inductance/resistance). The study provides guidelines of properly designing and using single-crystalline SiNMs diodes for flexible monolithic microwave integrated circuits.

Flexible microwave PIN diodes and switches employing transferrable single-crystal Si nanomembranes on plastic substrates

Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 2009

This paper reports the realization of flexible RF/microwave PIN diodes and switches using transferrable single-crystal Si nanomembranes (SiNM) that are monolithically integrated on low-cost, flexible plastic substrates. High frequency response is obtained through the realization of low parasitic resistance achieved with heavy ion implantation before nanomembrane release and transfer. The flexible lateral SiNM PIN diodes exhibit typical rectifying characteristics with insertion loss and isolation better than 0.9 dB and 19.6 dB, respectively, from DC to 5 GHz, as well as power handling up to 22.5 dBm without gain compression. A single-pole single-throw (SPST) flexible RF switch employing shunt-series PIN diode configuration has achieved insertion loss and isolation better than 0.6 dB and 22.9 dB, respectively, from DC to 5 GHz. Furthermore, the SPST microwave switch shows performance improvement and robustness under mechanical deformation conditions. The study demonstrates the considerable potential of using properly processed transferrable SiNM for microwave passive components. Future investigations on transferrable SiNMs will lead to eventual realization of monolithic microwave integrated systems on low-cost flexible substrates.

Optimising the Structure of Metal-Insulator-Metal Diodes for Rectenna Applications

2016

The work in this thesis investigates the design and fabrication of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diodes using an ultrathin organic insulator. The organic insulating layer was found to be compact, highly conformal, and uniform, effectively overcoming the main design challenge in MIM diodes. The fabricated diodes have strong nonlinear current-voltage characteristics with a zero-bias curvature coefficient and a voltage responsivity among the best values reported in the available literature. The fabrication process is simple and carried out at low temperature, which is cost effective, and can potentially be ported to large-area roll-to-roll manufacturing. An encapsulation method to prevent MIM junctions’ degradation has also been developed. Following the successful production of these MIM devices on a rigid substrate, with the fabrication only requiring low-temperature processing, the diodes were successfully fabricated on a flexible substrate with results similar to those fabricated on a...