Professor John McBride, Professor Liudi Jiang and post-doctoral research fellow Adam P. Lewis, received the 2015 Best Paper Award for the IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology in the Components: Characterisation and Modeling category.
The paper, entitled: ‘Evolution of Voltage Transients during the Switching of a MEMs Relay With Au/MWCNT Contacts’, was published in the December 2015 edition of the journal. It presents a method for improving the lifetime of gold as the electric contact material for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) metal contact switches.
McBride explained:
Using a combination of design and experimental methodologies, we found that gold-coated multi-walled carbon nanotube bilayer composite as a contact can withstand the damage caused by hot switching.
This work will enable us to make future MEMS more reliable and energy efficient.
Prior to joining the University’s Malaysia Campus, McBride was the Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment. As a lecturer in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, he specialised in electrical and contact physics and surface characterisation.
In 2006, he was awarded the IEEE Holm Scientific Achievement Award, an international award recognising outstanding scientists and engineers in the field of electrical contacts or related technologies. Two years later, he was team leader for the award of the international James A Lindner Prize for research on the ‘Sound Archive Project’.
