Micromechanical Characterization of Gasb by Microbeam Deflecion and Using Nanoprobe and Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

The commercial development of low-power electronics and electro-optics based on antimonides demands a better understanding of the mechanical properties of ternary and quaternary thin-film alloys fabricated from the InGaAlAsSbP material system. Of particular importance is the determination of Young's modulus of these materials. In this paper, a technique for studying the mechanical behavior of these thin films was developed by using microbeam bending and finite element modeling. The technique was successfully applied to investigate the mechanical properties of GaSb. A test structure consisting of an array of gallium antimonide microbeams was fabricated with lengths ranging from 50 to 500 μm long. The microbeams were deflected using a calibrated nanoprobe, thereby generating load-displacement curves. Young's modulus was then extracted from the data using beam bending theory and a finite element simulation of the structures under load. A total of five microbeams with the same trapezoidal cross-section and lengths of 80, 85, 200, 250 and 500 μm were tested to study the technique applicability and size scaling effects on the mechanical properties. It was observed that the 80 and 85 μm beams exhibited linear elastic behavior and the 200, 250, and 500 μm microbeams exhibited non-linear elastic behavior.

Fabrication of Nanotips and Microbeams in Antimonide Based Semiconductor Material using Bromine Ion Beam Assisted Etching

“…Recently, we were able to determine the Young's modulus of bulk GaSb to be 76.8 GPa (within 13.7% of the published value) by deflecting these microbeams using a calibrated nanoprobe 11 . The fabrication of microbeams in semiconductor substrates is very interesting from this point of view, as properties such as stress and strain of the free-standing alloys and heterostructures, made from combinations of theses alloys, can be evaluated.…”