Patent ID: 8354290

Claim:
A process for fabricating a radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical switch (MEMS) capacitive switch, comprising the steps of: providing a substrate; placing a bottom electrode on the substrate; depositing layers of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) thin film on the bottom electrode by microwave chemical vapor deposition (CVD) with a microwave CVD plasma gas comprising argon (Ar), methane (CH 4 ) and hydrogen (H 2 ) to form multilayered UNCD dielectric films including depositing a bottom UNCD layer on the bottom electron with H 2 flow for rapid nucleation of the UNCD and forming a substantially continuous dielectric film; depositing an intermediate UNCD layer on the bottom UNCD layer with a higher H 2 flow and forming a higher resistivity film with a hydrogen enriched grain boundary; depositing an upper UNCD layer on the intermediate UNCD layer with a lower H 2 flow than for the intermediate UNCD layer for dense nucleation of the UNCD to fill in the gaps or pinholes between grains and forming a substantially continuous layer; positioning a moveable metallic membrane above the multilayered UNCD dielectric film; positioning a top electrode above the membrane; and forming a long life RF MEMS capacitive switch with the multilayered UNCD dielectric film, membrane, electrodes and substrate so that the RF MEMS capacitive switch is operable for more than 100 billion cycles.