An electrical probe for measuring thermal expansion coefficients of micromachined polysilicon thin films

Author

Liu, Hai-Yun ; Huang, Qing-An ; Li, Wei-Hua

Author_Institution

Key Lab. of MEMS of Minist. of Educ., Southeast Univ., Nanjing, China

fYear

2010

fDate

1-4 Nov. 2010

Firstpage

2538

Lastpage

2542

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel electrical test structure for determining the thermal expansion coefficients (TECs) of micromachined polysilicon thin films. The electrothermal properties of the test structure are analyzed. The pull-in method is exploited in characterizing TECs of thin films. In addition, an analytical model and a measurement method are developed. The finite element software ANSYS is used to support the electrothermal analytical model. The test structure is fabricated using standard surface micromachining technology, and it is characterized under the natural operation environment. Measured average value of TEC is 2.48 × 10^-6 K^-1 from 300 K to 364.8K.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; finite element analysis; micromachining; probes; semiconductor thin films; silicon; thermal expansion measurement; ANSYS software; TEC measurement; electrical probe; electrical test structure; electrothermal analytical model; finite element software; micromachined polysilicon thin film; thermal expansion coefficient measurement;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Sensors, 2010 IEEE

Conference_Location

Kona, HI

ISSN

1930-0395

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-8170-5

Electronic_ISBN

1930-0395

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSENS.2010.5690482

Filename

5690482