Nanomechanical Testing of Free-Standing Monocrystalline Silicon Beams

A fabrication process to characterize single crystalline silicon microbeams under uniaxial tensile stress is presented. The microbeams subjected to uniaxial tensile strain are successfully released without any stiction by the use of critical point drying tool. Based on the deformation measured using scanning electron microscope (static measurement) images, the corresponding strain and stress are calculated to plot the uniaxial tensile characteristics curve of monocrystalline silicon. Dynamic stress determination based on the measurements of flexural resonance frequency of the released beams is discussed. Finally, comparison of stress values obtained using the two methods is shown.