In this article, for the first time, we present the improvement in efficiency in a low-voltage dc–dc boost converter for the energy-harvesting applications using the experimentally demonstrated sub-50-mV nano electro-mechanical switch (NEMS). As per the measurement results, the sub-50-mV NEMS having a small air gap of only 100 nm exhibits very low hysteresis (< 20 mV), low turn-on delay (15 ns), and low sub-threshold swing of 2 mV/decade. In addition to this, the fabricated NEMS is a propitious candidate toward ideal power switch with almost zero leakage current and a maximum ON-state conductance value of 0.1 A/( $\text{V}\cdot \mu \text{m}$ ). This study explores a discontinuous-conduction mode (DCM) boost converter with specifications suitable for energy-harvesting applications using the NEMS-based design. The results are compared with the corresponding design using the MOSFET switches in 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS technology. This work illustrates that the NEMS-based DCM boost converter design has an improvement in the efficiency of around 30% at a switching frequency of 10 kHz over CMOS for the same ON-state resistance. This is because the proposed fabricated NEMS has extreme low pull-in voltage (50 mV) and low parasitic capacitances (~3.3 fF/ $\mu \text{m}$ ).

中文翻译：

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使用低于50mV的NEMS的高效1V升压转换器，无人体偏置

在本文中，我们首次展示了使用实验证明的低于50 mV的纳米机电开关（NEMS）进行能量收集应用的低压dc-dc升压转换器的效率提高。根据测量结果，气隙只有100 nm的50 mV以下的NEMS表现出非常低的磁滞（<20 mV），低的开启延迟（15 ns）和2的低亚阈值摆幅mV /十年。除此之外，制造的NEMS是理想的电源开关选择，其漏电流几乎为零，最大导通状态电导值为0.1 A /（ $ \ text {V} \ cdot \ mu \ text {m} $ ）。这项研究探索了一种不连续导电模式（DCM）升压转换器，其规格适用于使用基于NEMS的设计的能量收集应用。将结果与使用0.18-ΩMOSFET开关的相应设计进行比较 $ \ mu \ text {m} $ CMOS技术。这项工作说明，对于相同的导通状态电阻，基于NEMS的DCM升压转换器设计在CMOS开关频率为10 kHz时，效率提高了约30％。这是因为拟议制造的NEMS具有极低的吸合电压（50 mV）和低寄生电容（〜3.3 fF / $ \ mu \ text {m} $ ）。