MEMS and Nanotechnology

ABSTRACT As scaling continues beyond nano-technology, integrated circuit reliability is gaining increasing concerns in IC (Integrated Circuit) fabrication technology with decreasing transistor gate size, and the impact of trace interconnect failure mechanisms on device performance and reliability will demand much more from integration schemes, interconnect materials, and processes. An optimal low-k dielectric material and their […]

Thermoelectric Effects in Current Induced Crystallization of Silicon Microstructures (MEMS and Nanotechnology)

Abstract We have observed melting of nanocrystalline silicon microwires self-heated through single high-amplitude microsecond voltage pulses which leads to growth from melt upon resolidification. The resolidified regions form two single-crystal domains for wires with sub-micrometer widths. The current densities (J) involved in this process are ~ 1-10 MA/cm2 for suspended wires, and ~ 10-100 MA/cm2 […]

Evaluation of Resistance Measurement Techniques in Carbon Black and Carbon Nano-tubes Reinforced Epoxy (MEMS and Nanotechnology)

ABSTRACT Two different resistance measurement techniques are used in an epoxy material reinforced separately with carbon black (CB) micro-particles and carbon nano-tubes (CNTs) to evaluate the effectiveness of both the techniques and type of reinforcement on damage detection under uni-axial tensile loading. Two techniques, namely traditional four-point probe (FPP) and four-circumferential ring probe (FCRP) are […]

A nano-tensile tester for creep studies (MEMS and Nanotechnology)

Abstract Free-standing metallic thin films are increasingly used as structural components in MEMS. In commercial devices, long-term reliability is essential, which requires determining time-dependent mechanical properties of these films. The uniaxial tensile test is a preferred method due to uncomplicated determination of the stress and strain state. However, at the MEMS-scale this method is not […]

The Measurement of Cyclic Creep Behavior in Copper Thin Film Using Microtensile Testing (MEMS and Nanotechnology)

ABSTRACT A micro-tensile testing for studying the cyclic fatigue mechanical properties of freestanding copper thin film with thickness of sub-micrometer application for MEMS was performed to observe its mechanical response under tension-tension fatigue experiments with a variety of mean stress conditions at cyclic loading frequencies up to 20 Hz. Tensile sample loading was applied using […]

New Insight into Pile-up in Thin Film Indentation (MEMS and Nanotechnology)

ABSTRACT A new method of accurately and reliably extract the actual Young’s modulus of a thin film on a substrate has been developed. The method is referred to as the discontinuous elastic interface transfer model. The method has been shown to work exceptionally well with films and substrates encompassing a wide range of elastic moduli […]

Measuring Substrate-Independent Young’s Modulus of Thin Films (MEMS and Nanotechnology)

ABSTRACT Substrate influence is a common problem when using instrumented indentation (also known as nano-indentation) to evaluate the elastic modulus of thin films. Many have proposed models in order to be able to extract the film modulus (Ef) from the measured substrate-affected modulus, assuming that the film thickness (t) and substrate modulus (Es) are known. […]

Analysis of Spherical Indentation of an Elastic Bilayer Using a Modified Perturbation Approach (MEMS and Nanotechnology)

ABSTRACT Accurate mechanical property measurement of films on substrates by instrumented indentation requires a solution describing the effective modulus of the film/substrate system. Here, a first-order elastic perturbation solution for spherical indentation on a film/substrate is presented. Finite element method (FEM) simulations were conducted for comparison with the analytical solution. FEM results indicate that the […]

Nano-indentation Studies of Polyglactin 910 Monofilament Sutures (MEMS and Nanotechnology)

ABSTRACT Nano-indentation studies using atomic force microscopy (AFM) were introduced to investigate the effects of hydrolysis degradation on mechanical properties of polyglactin 910 monofilament sutures. The polyglactin 910 sutures were immersed in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) solution of pH 5, 7.4, 10 without enzyme and pH 7.4 with esterase enzyme. After that, the samples were […]

Analytical approach for the determination of nanomechanical properties for metals (MEMS and Nanotechnology)

ABSTRACT A modified form of the two-slope method used for the determination of mechanical properties of a material is presented in this paper. Modified expressions for the determination of slopes of the loading and unloading curves make use of the energy based parameters which are independent of the indentation size. A correction factor is also […]