In Situ Measurement of Elastic Modulus of Individual Layers for Composite Thin Films by MEMS Test Structures
In this paper, a direct and simple method to characterize the elastic modulus of individual layers for composite films byin situmeasuring of MEMS test structures is presented. The structure is composed of a set of microactuators which contains a rigid plate with two supporting composite beams. A model is developed to describe analytically the relationship between the force and the deflection of microactuators by electrostatic measurements, and the elastic modulus of multi-layered beams with different widths are evaluated. FEM simulations are implemented to validate the accuracy of the relationship between the on-load voltage and the capacitance between the microactuator and the electrode on the substrate. Test structures are fabricated using CMOS-MEMS process and experiments are to be carried out soon.