Avoidance of stiction in the release of highly boron doped micro-actuators fabricated using BESOI substrates

Abstract

This paper presents a new technique which has been successfully applied to the fabrication of micromachined components to avoid the ‘device stiction’ often encountered during the final processing steps of micro-fabrication. Based on the use of BESOI substrates, this technique involves the heavy boron doping of the final processed structure, followed by a timed wet etch which releases the micromachined device by controllably lowering the undoped Si substrate beneath it.