Abstract
Inherent residual stresses during material deposition can have profound effects on the functionality and reliability of fabricated MEMS devices. Residual stress often causes device failure due to curling, buckling, or fracture. Typically, the material properties of thin films used in surface micromachining are not very well controlled during deposition. The residual stress, for example, tends to vary significantly for different deposition conditions; experiments were carried out to study the polysilicon and silicon nitride deposited by Low Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition (LPCVD) method at wide range of process conditions. High temperature annealing effects on stress in case polysilicon are also reported. The reduced residual stress levels can significantly improve device performance, reliability, and yield as MEMS devices become smaller.
Highlights
The deposition of thin films is an important field of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) or micro system technology
Polysilicon and silicon nitride thin films were deposited by Tempress Journal of Materials significantly along the length of tube despite the temperature gradient
This work confirms how the residual stress, deposition rate, refractive index, and film compositions are affected by deposition parameters
Summary
The deposition of thin films is an important field of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) or micro system technology. Other sources are lattice mismatch, crystallization, atomic peening, incorporation of foreign atoms, microscopic voids, variation of interatomic spacing with crystal size, crystallite coalescence at grain boundaries, phase transformations, and texture effect. Sometimes this stress is called internal stress or residual stress. Each particular investigation involving MEMS tends to be device dependent; type of film used and deposition methods adopted, and introduces new fundamental questions. Progress in this field has leaned towards providing more specific technological solutions rather than generating a basic understanding of mechanical behavior
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