Fabricating Ultra-thin Silicon Nitride Membranes Suspended on Silicon Wafer
Main Article Content
Abstract
Ultrathin silicon nitride SiNx membrane suspended on a silicon wafer is a popular two-dimensional platform in MEMS applications. The unsupported membrane has a low thermal conductivity, is electrically insulated, and very robust against mechanical impact. Remarkably thin, it is difficult to fabricate and manipulate. Recently equipped with a dual chamber system for plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and reactive ion etching, we calibrate it to deposit silicon nitride Si3N4, silicon dioxide SiO2, and to dry etch these materials. Based on the superb quality of Si3N4, we perform a through-wafer etch that creates suspended Si3N4 membranes. The recipe is reliable and reproducible. We analyze the membrane’s chemical composition and optical properties. Although created by PECVD, the membrane is so robust that it survives multiple lithography steps. It extends our capability to study thermal transport at the submicron scale as well as to fabricate micron size devices for MEMS applicati
Keywords:
Power MEMS, Silicon nitride membranes, PECVD, silicon wafer.
References
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[8] T. L. Morkveda, W. A. Lopesa, J. Hahmb, S. J. Sibenerb and H. M. Jaeger, Silicon nitride membrane substrates for the investigation of local structure in polymer thin films, Polymer communications 39 (1998), 3871-3875.
[9] K. Suzuki, J. Matsui, and T. Torikai, SiN membrane masks for X-ray lithography, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. 20 (1982), 191-194.
[10] D. Hohm and G. Hess, A subminiature condenser microphone with silicon nitride membrane and silicon back plate, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 85 (1998), 476-480.
[11] G. M. Rebeiz and J. B. Muldavin, RF MEMS switches and switch circuits, IEEE Microwave magazine. 2 (2001), 59-71.
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[19] A. N. Sorokin, A. A. Karpushin and V. A. Gritsenko, Electronic Structure of SiNx, JETP Lett. 98 (2013), 709-712.
[20] M. Ghaderi, R.F. Wolffenbuttel, Design and fabrication of ultrathin silicon-nitride membranes for use in UV- visible air gap-based MEMS optical filters, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 575 (2016), 012032(7pp).
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[23] T. Grigaitis, A. Naujokaitis, S. Tumėnas, G. Juška, and K. Arlauskas, Characterization of silicon nitride layers deposited in three-electrode plasma-enhanced CVD chamber, Lith. J. Phys. 55 (2015), 35-43.
[24] A. W. Grant, Q. H. Hu and B. Kasemo, Transmission electron microscopy ‘windows’ for nanofabricated structure, Nanotechnology 15 (2004), 1175-1181.
[25] V. Linseis, F. Volklein, H. Reith, P. Woias, and K. Nielsch, Analytical investigation of the limits for the in-plane thermal conductivity measurement using a suspended membrane setup, Journal of electronics materials 47 (2018), 3203-3209.
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[27] L. T. Dang, T. H. Dang, T. T. T. Nguyen, T. T. Nguyen, H. M. Nguyen, T. V. Nguyen, and H. Q. Nguyen, Thermoelectric microrefrigerator based on Bismuth/Antimony Telluride, Journal of Electronics Materials 46 (2017), 3660-3666.