Abstract
Crystalline silicon is an excellent mechanical material and an excellent electronic material. The mechanical properties of bulk silicon are quite ideally governed by the theory of elasticity in a large temperature range. It is speculated that the mechanical properties of silicon may change when the geometries of the mechanical structure are scaled down. Fortunately, however, no significant changes in the mechanical properties are observed so far for silicon mechanical structures in micrometer scale. Therefore, it is assumed throughout this chapter that the mechanical properties of a silicon micro structure are ideally elastic. This assumption implies that, if the deformation produced by external forces does not exceed a certain limit, it disappears once the forces are removed. As a crystalline material is anisotropic, the mechanical properties of silicon are orientation dependent and the relations among mechanical parameters are tensor equations. Thus, for the simplicity of analysis, homogeneous assumption is used in this this chapter. The homogeneous assumption simplifies analytical analysis greatly without causing significant errors in the results.
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