A SOI Out-of-Plane Electrostatic MEMS Actuator Based on In-Plane Motion

Deformations of Single-Crystal Silicon Circular Plate: Theory and Experiment

“…Nowadays, silicon membrane technology is of a great interest for modern electronics, since it opens the way for the creation of sensitive elements and supporting structures of a number of promising micro/nanoelectromechanical system (MEMS/NEMS)-based devices, such as accelerometers [1], pressure sensors [2], gas flow meters [3], microbolometers [4,5], digital micromirrors [6], resonators [7], microactuators [8], etc. The main task of this technology is to fabricate high-quality thin-film membranes with specified thermo-mechanical properties that ensure the appropriate operating characteristics of MEMS/NEMS devices, which, depending on their purpose, is achieved by using various methods: (1) the formation of stress-compensated (or stress-free) multilayer films for thermal sensors by combining materials with compressive (SiO 2 , TEOS) and tensile (Si 3 N 4 , Fe 65 Co 35 ) stress [3,9,10], (2) a selection of layer materials in optical and infrared (IR) membrane sensors with effective absorption of radiation in a given wavelength range [11,12], (3) the fabrication of ultrathin extreme ultraviolet (EUV) transparent pellicles to protect the photomask from various contaminants [13], (4) the synthesis of new compositions of highly reflective multilayer X-ray mirrors with a roughness below 1 nm [14], (5) the use of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) structures with a functional layer based on single-crystalline highly-doped silicon (Si) as a field-emission electrode material in nanoscale vacuum channel transistors [15] or as a thermocouple material with an increased Seebeck coefficient in microbolometer IR detector arrays [16], etc.…”