Optical Methodology for Testing of Microsystems

Advancing the emerging technologies of MEMS, especially relating to the applications, constitutes one of the most challenging tasks in today’s micromechanics. In addition to design, analysis, and fabrication capabilities, this task also requires advanced test methodologies for determination of functional characteristics of devices produced to enable verification of their operation as well as refinement and optimization of specific designs. The tools used can be categorized as analytical, computational, and experimental. Solutions using the tools from any one category alone do not usually provide all of the necessary information on MEMS and extensive merging, or hybridization, of the tools from different categories is used. One of the approaches employed in the development of micro-structures of contemporary interest, is based on a combined use of the analytical, computational, and experimental solutions (ACES) methodology. In this paper, applicability of the ACES methodology is illustrated by use of selected MEMS samples. The representative results presented in this paper indicate that the optical methodology is a viable tool for micro-scale measurements and, as such, it is particularly useful for development of MEMS, especially while considering MEMS reliability assessment. In fact, this methodology is being used in various manufacturing stages of MEMS for high-performance applications.