title: Controlling Stiction in Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems Using Liquid Crystals.
abstract: Stiction is one of the major reliability issues limiting practical application of nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS), an emerging device technology that exploits mechanical movements on the scale of an integrated electronic circuit. We report on a discovery that stiction can be eliminated by infiltrating NEMS with nematic liquid crystals. We demonstrate this experimentally using a NEMS-based tunable photonic metamaterial, where reliable switching of optical response was achieved for the entire range of nanoscopic structural displacements admitted by the metamaterial design. Being a more straightforward and easy-to-implement alternative to the existing antistiction solutions, our approach also introduces an active mechanism of stiction control, which enables toggling between stiction-free and the usual (stiction-limited) regimes of NEMS operation. It is expected to greatly expand the functionality of electro-mechanical devices and enable the development of adaptive and smart nanosystems.
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Research Centre and Centre for Photonic Metamaterials, ‡Physics and Astronomy, and §Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, U.K.
authors.forename: Oleksandr
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Buchnev
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Research Centre and Centre for Photonic Metamaterials, ‡Physics and Astronomy, and §Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, U.K.
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Podoliak
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Research Centre and Centre for Photonic Metamaterials, ‡Physics and Astronomy, and §Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, U.K.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Frank
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Research Centre and Centre for Photonic Metamaterials, ‡Physics and Astronomy, and §Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, U.K.
authors.forename: Malgosia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kaczmarek
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Research Centre and Centre for Photonic Metamaterials, ‡Physics and Astronomy, and §Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, U.K.
authors.forename: Liudi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Research Centre and Centre for Photonic Metamaterials, ‡Physics and Astronomy, and §Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, U.K.
authors.forename: Vassili A
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4862-574X
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Fedotov
keywords: MEMS; NEMS; liquid crystals; reconfigurable metamaterials; stiction