Thispaper demonstrates fabrication and characterization of thin-film Ti-TiO 2 -Pd based MetalInsulator-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.
IntroductionThe microwave circuits on flex substrates enable various applications in wireless communication, identification systems, portable/wearable communication devices, wireless power transfer, security and bio-sensing. Flexible electronics have potential advantages over conventional system as they are light weight, large area compatible, enables roll to roll fabrication, low temperature processing and thus very important for low cost manufacturing [1][2][3][4]. Over the last decade, significant work has been carried out on the design and fabrication of RF passive devices on flexible substrates [5,6]. However, direct integration of active components such as diodes and transistors on flex substrates is still a challenge. For applications that require low cost but high-performance RF/Microwave circuitry capable of operating up to several gigahertzs, flexible substrate is a good choice. Many RF applications like portable communications systems require microwave wave antenna arrays integrated with active electronic devices. The cost of assembling passive and active device modules is high as the cost of the individual III-V electronic circuitry is very high. This problem can be solved by integration of passive devices like antenna arrays and highspeed electronics onto large-area, flexible substrates for applications like imaging system. The metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diodes are made entirely of thin film materials i.e. metals and insulators and provide non-linear characteristics dominated by tunneling effects. They can be easily fabricated on wide variety of flexible substrate or even on top of existing CMOS circuitry. Thus RF and microwave devices based on MIM diodes is a promising area of research, as they can operated at very high frequencies, they are simple to implement and process, and a host of metal dielectric combinations can be used to achieve desired diode characteristics. Thus, this allows fabrication of RF circuits onto low cost plastic substrates, which in-turn may be attached to objects of interest like automobile, aircraft or on