Reliability and stability of thin-film amorphous silicon MEMS on glass substrates

2011 ◽  
Vol 1299 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. M. Sousa ◽  
V. Chu ◽  
J. P. Conde

ABSTRACTIn this work, we present a reliability and stability study of doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon (n+-a-Si:H) thin-film silicon MEMS resonators. The n+-a-Si:H structural material was deposited using radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD) and processed using surface micromachining at a maximum deposition temperature of 110 ºC. n+-a-Si:H resonant bridges can withstand the industry standard of 1011 cycles at high load with no structural damage. Tests performed up to 3x1011 cycles showed a negligible level of degradation in Q during the entire cycling period which in addition shows the high stability of the resonator. In measurements both in vacuum and in air a resonance frequency shift which is proportional to the number of cycles is established. This shift is between 0.1 and 0.4%/1x1011 cycles depending on the applied VDC. When following the resonance frequency in vacuum during cyclic loading, desorption of air molecules from the resonator surface is responsible for an initial higher resonance frequency shift before the linear dependence is established.

2011 ◽  
Vol 221 ◽  
pp. 117-122
Author(s):  
Ying Ge Li ◽  
Dong Xing Du

Thin film Amorphous Silicon materials have found wide application in photovoltaic industry. In this paper, thin layers (around 300nm) of intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) are fabricated on glass (Corning Eagle2000TM) substrates by employing plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system with gas sources of silane and hydrogen. The deposited thin films are proven to be material of amorphous silicon by Raman spectroscopy measurement and their electronic transport properties are thoroughly characterized in terms of photoconductivity, dark conductivity and photo response. The effect of Hydrogen dilution on electrical properties are investigated for a-Si:H thin films deposited in the temperatures range of 150~200°C. Results indicate that a-Si:H thin films on glass substrate owns device-quality electrical properties and could be applied on fabricating thin film solar cells as the absorber layer material and on other photovoltaic or photo electronic devices.


1996 ◽  
Vol 424 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. I. Schropp ◽  
K. F. Feenstra ◽  
C. H. M. Van Der Werf ◽  
J. Holleman ◽  
H. Meiling

AbstractWe present the first thin film transistors (TFTs) incorporating a low hydrogen content (5 - 9 at.-%) amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) layer deposited by the Hot-Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition (HWCVD) technique. This demonstrates the possibility of utilizing this material in devices. The deposition rate by Hot-Wire CVD is an order of magnitude higher than by Plasma Enhanced CVD. The switching ratio for TFTs based on HWCVD a-Si:H is better than 5 orders of magnitude. The field-effect mobility as determined from the saturation regime of the transfer characteristics is still quite poor. The interface with the gate dielectric needs further optimization. Current crowding effects, however, could be completely eliminated by a H2 plasma treatment of the HW-deposited intrinsic layer. In contrast to the PECVD reference device, the HWCVD device appears to be almost unsensitive to bias voltage stressing. This shows that HW-deposited material might be an approach to much more stable devices.


2015 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Gaur ◽  
Ari Partanen ◽  
Beat Werner ◽  
Pejman Ghanouni ◽  
Rachelle Bitton ◽  
...  

2011 ◽  
Vol 403-408 ◽  
pp. 1183-1187
Author(s):  
N. Ramakrishnan ◽  
Harshal B. Nemade ◽  
Roy Paily Palathinkal

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors form an important class of micro sensors in the microelecto mechanical systems (MEMS) family. Mass loading effect of a sensing medium is one of the prime sensing principles in SAW sensors. Recently we reported mass loading effect of high aspect ratio nano-pillars attached to a SAW resonator. We observed increase in resonance frequency of the SAW resonator in addition to the general mass loading characteristics. We concluded that when the resonance frequency of the pillar is equal to the SAW resonator frequency, the resonance frequency shift caused by mass loading of pillar tends to a negligible value. When such resonating pillars are used as sensing medium in SAW sensors, even a very small change in the dimension of the pillar will offer significant resonance frequency shift. Accordingly, high sensitive SAW sensors can be developed. However in practice it’s quite difficult to manufacture nano-pillars with accurate dimensions such that they resonate with SAW resonator. There is more probability that the pillars may closely resonate with SAW device and offer mass loading. In the present work we have extended our earlier work and performed finite element method (FEM) simulation to study the insight physics of the closely resonating pillars and their effects on acoustic wave propagating on SAW substrate. In this paper we present the discussion on the resonance effects of typical closely resonating pillars on resonance frequency spectrum of the SAW resonator and observations in the pressure wave at the contact surface of the pillar and SAW resonator substrate. It is observed that when the nano-pillars closely resonate with SAW resonator, the pillar oscillations combine with waves propagating in the substrate and introduce beat frequencies. The results and discussion of this paper adds additional information in designing SAW based coupled resonating systems.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lia Aprilia ◽  
Ratno Nuryadi ◽  
Dwi Gustiono ◽  
Nurmahmudi ◽  
Arief Udhiarto ◽  
...  

Resonance frequency shift of a zinc oxide- (ZnO-) functionalized microcantilever as a response to carbon monoxide (CO) gas has been investigated. Here, ZnO microrods were grown on the microcantilever surface by a hydrothermal method. The measurement of resonance frequency of the microcantilever vibrations due to the gas was carried out in two conditions, that is, gas flow with and without air pumping into an experiment chamber. The results show that the resonance frequency of the ZnO-functionalized microcantilever decreases because of CO in air pumping condition, while it increases when CO is introduced without air pumping. Such change in the resonance frequency is influenced by water vapor condition, and a possible model based on water-CO combination was proposed.


1996 ◽  
Vol 424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeong Hyun Kim ◽  
Woong Sik Choi ◽  
Chan Hee Hong ◽  
Hoe Sup Soh

AbstractThe off current behavior of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film transistors (TFTs) with an atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) silicon dioxide (SiO2) gate insulator were investigated at negative gate voltages. The a-Si:H TFT with SiO2 gate insulator has small off currents and large activation energy (Ea) of the off current compared to the a-Si:H TFT with SiNx gate insulator. The holes induced in the channel by negative gate voltage seem to be trapped in the defect states near the a-Si:H/SiO2 interface. The interface state density in the lower half of the band gap of a-Si:H/SiO2 appears to be much higher than that for a-Si:H/SiNx.


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