Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a unique phase change material (PCM) that possesses a metal-to-insulator transition property. Pristine VO2 has a negative temperature coefficient of resistance, and it undergoes an insulator-to-metal phase change at a transition temperature of 68°C. Such a property makes the VO2 thin-film-based variable resistor (varistor) a good candidate in reconfigurable electronics to be integrated with different RF devices such as inductors, varactors, and antennas. Series single-pole single-throw (SPST) switches with integrated VO2 thin films were designed, fabricated, and tested. The overall size of the device is 380 μm × 600 μm. The SPST switches were fabricated on a sapphire substrate with integrated heating coil to control VO2 phase change. During the test, when VO2 thin film changed from insulator at room temperature to metallic state (low-resistive phase) at 80 °C, the insertion loss of the SPST switch wasaddition, the isolation of the SPST improved to better than 30 dB when the temperature dropped to 20 °C. These tunable characteristics of the RF switch provide evidence for VO2 as a useful PCM for of applications in reconfigurable electronics.
- Coplanar waveguide (CPW),
- metal–insulator transition (MIT),
- switch,
- thin film,
- vanadium dioxide (VO2),
- variable resistor (varistor)
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This work was supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory Sensors Directorate through the AFRL Research Collaboration Program under Contract FA8650-13-C-5800.