A novel bulge-testing setup for rectangular free-standing thin films

Abstract

A newly designed bulge-testing apparatus for the mechanical testing of the tensile properties of free-standing thin films has been constructed and tested. With this instrument it is possible to measure the elastic modulus, tensile and compressive growth stress, and plain strain yield strength in thin films. The setup features a high strain resolution (4E-10), and a high stress resolution, e.g., >0.2 MPa for bulge heights larger than 10 μm. In our setup, thin films are stressed by a differential gas pressure across the film, while the deflection is measured by a scanning laser beam. The scanning laser beam measures the curvature of the bulge rather than the bulge height. This makes the setup insensitive to a possible initial nonflatness of the film. This also provides the possibility to measure the growth stress of films that were deposited under a compressive stress. We show the results of measurements of the plane strain modulus on thin tungsten films and on both flat and nonflat aluminum (alloy) film samples.