Elimination of Curvature in Microelectromechanical-System Membrane

This paper describes the correlation between microelectromechanical-system (MEMS) membrane curvature and implanted argon in a microelectromechanical-system membrane. When a free-standing silicon membrane, fabricated through ashing of an organic film, is cleaned by exposure to argon plasma to remove the oxidized surface, the membrane is curved uniformly. The curvature is released by annealing. Total-reflection X-ray fluorescence analysis before/after annealing reveals that argon, which is implanted into the crystal lattice of silicon by argon plasma exposure, is desorbed by annealing. This analysis also indicates that there is a linear correlation between the curvature change and implanted argon.