Effect of size and moisture on the mechanical behavior of SU-8 thin films

Abstract

The mechanical properties of SU-8 were investigated in conjunction with size effect, mechanical anisotropy and moisture absorption. Uniaxial tensile experiments were conducted on SU-8 films of 500 nm and 2 μm thickness. A spin coating process was used to fabricate the films with one set from a single coat (single layer) and the others containing multiple coats (multilayer) with pre-baking in between. The stress versus strain response was obtained from in situ optical experiments and a digital image correlation method. Compared to single layer films, the multilayer films showed a significant increase in mechanical properties as well as in-plane anisotropy. This anisotropy was confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and attributed to the spin coating process, which resulted in higher crosslinking density in the film, and molecular orientation in the radial direction. Moisture absorption studies revealed that the mechanical properties were affected by water, which exists in both the free and bonded form in the polymer and acts as a plasticizer. The effect of moisture was similar in both the single and multilayer films, but was higher for the latter due to multiple processing steps as well as the existence of higher percentage of epoxy polar groups.