High-Q single crystal silicon HARPSS capacitive beam resonators with self-aligned sub-100-nm transduction gaps

This paper reports on the fabrication and characterization of high-quality factor (Q) single crystal silicon (SCS) in-plane capacitive beam resonators with sub-100 nm to submicron transduction gaps using the HARPSS process. The resonating element is made of single crystal silicon while the drive and sense electrodes are made of trench-refilled polysilicon, yielding an all-silicon capacitive microresonator. The fabricated SCS resonators are 20-40 /spl mu/m thick and have self-aligned capacitive gaps. Vertical gaps as small as 80 nm in between 20 /spl mu/m thick silicon structures have been demonstrated in this work. A large number of clamped-free and clamped-clamped beam resonators were fabricated. Quality factors as high as 177000 for a 19 kHz clamped-free beam and 74000 for an 80 kHz clamped-clamped beam were measured under 1 mtorr vacuum. Clamped-clamped beam resonators were operated at their higher resonance modes (up to the fifth mode); a resonance frequency of 12 MHz was observed for the fifth mode of a clamped-clamped beam with the fundamental mode frequency of 0.91 MHz. Electrostatic tuning characteristics of the resonators have been measured and compared to the theoretical values. The measured Q values of the clamped-clamped beam resonators are within 20% of the fundamental thermoelastic damping limits (Q/sub TED/) obtained from finite element analysis.     

Two-axis single-crystal silicon micromirror arrays

This work presents the design, fabrication, and testing of a two-axis 320 pixel micromirror array. The mirror platform is constructed entirely of single-crystal silicon (SCS) minimizing residual and thermal stresses. The 14-/spl mu/m-thick rectangular (750/spl times/800 /spl mu/m/sup 2/) silicon platform is coated with a 0.1-/spl mu/m-thick metallic (Au) reflector. The mirrors are actuated electrostatically with shaped parallel plate electrodes with 86 /spl mu/m gaps. Large area 320-mirror arrays with fabrication yields of 90% per array have been fabricated using a combination of bulk micromachining of SOI wafers, anodic bonding, deep reactive ion etching, and surface micromachining. Several type of micromirror devices have been fabricated with rectangular and triangular electrodes. Triangular electrode devices displayed stable operation within a (/spl plusmn/5/spl deg/, /spl plusmn/5/spl deg/) (mechanical) angular range with voltage drives as low as 60 V.     

A monolithic three-axis micro-g micromachined silicon capacitive accelerometer

A monolithic three-axis micro-g resolution silicon capacitive accelerometer system utilizing a combined surface and bulk micromachining technology is demonstrated. The accelerometer system consists of three individual single-axis accelerometers fabricated in a single substrate using a common fabrication process. All three devices have 475-/spl mu/m-thick silicon proof-mass, large area polysilicon sense/drive electrodes, and small sensing gap (<1.5 /spl mu/m) formed by a2004 sacrificial oxide layer. The fabricated accelerometer is 7/spl times/9 mm/sup 2/ in size, has 100 Hz bandwidth, >/spl sim/5 pF/g measured sensitivity and calculated sub-/spl mu/g//spl radic/Hz mechanical noise floor for all three axes. The total measured noise floor of the hybrid accelerometer assembled with a CMOS interface circuit is 1.60 /spl mu/g//spl radic/Hz (>1.5 kHz) and 1.08 /spl mu/g//spl radic/Hz (>600 Hz) for in-plane and out-of-plane devices, respectively.     

A Gap Reduction and Manufacturing Technique for Thick Oxide Mask Layers With Multiple-Size Sub-$mu$m Openings

This paper introduces a technique for the fabrication of thick oxide hard masks on top of a substrate with adjustable opening sizes in the sub-$mu$m regime, while the only lithography step involved has$mu$m-scale resolution. This thick oxide mask layer with sub-$mu$m openings is suitable for etching deep narrow trenches in silicon using deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) tools. Openings of less than 100 nm are realized in a 1.5-$mu$m-thick oxide layer, while the original lithographically defined feature sizes are larger than 1$mu$m in width. This method, combined with modified high aspect ratio DRIE recipes, shows a great potential for single-mask batch-fabrication of high frequency low-impedance single crystalline resonators on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates. Dry-etched trenches with aspect ratios as high as 60:1 are fabricated in silicon using the gap reduction technique to realize 200 nm opening sizes in an oxide mask layer. Various resonator structures with sub-$mu$m capacitive gaps are also fabricated on a SOI substrate using a single-mask process. Measurement results from high-frequency and high-quality factor (Q) all single crystal silicon resonators are presented.1684     

Development of AFM tensile test technique for evaluating mechanical properties of sub-micron thick DLC films

This paper describes mechanical properties of submicron thick diamond-like carbon (DLC) films used for surface modification in MEMS devices. A new compact tensile tester operating under an atomic force microscope (AFM) is developed to measure Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio and fracture strength of single crystal silicon (SCS) and DLC coated SCS (DLC/SCS) specimens. DLC films with a thickness ranging from 0.11 /spl mu/m to 0.58 /spl mu/m are deposited on 19-/spl mu/m-thick SCS substrate by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition using a hot cathode penning ionization gauge discharge. Young's moduli of the DLC films deposited at bias voltages of -100 V and -300 V are found to be constant at 102 GPa and 121 GPa, respectively, regardless of film thickness. Poisson's ratio of DLC film is also independent of film thickness, whereas fracture strength of DLC/SCS specimens is inversely proportional to thickness. Raman spectroscopy analyses are performed to examine the effect of hydrogen content in DLC films on elastic properties. Raman spectra reveal that a reduction in hydrogen content in the films leads to better elastic properties. Finally, the proposed evaluation techniques are shown to be applicable to sub-micron thick DLC films by finite element analyses.     

An in-plane high-sensitivity, low-noise micro-g silicon accelerometer with CMOS readout circuitry

A high-sensitivity, low-noise in-plane (lateral) capacitive silicon microaccelerometer utilizing a combined surface and bulk micromachining technology is reported. The accelerometer utilizes a 0.5-mm-thick, 2.4/spl times/1.0 mm/sup 2/ proof-mass and high aspect-ratio vertical polysilicon sensing electrodes fabricated using a trench refill process. The electrodes are separated from the proof-mass by a 1.1-/spl mu/m sensing gap formed using a sacrificial oxide layer. The measured device sensitivity is 5.6 pF/g. A CMOS readout circuit utilizing a switched-capacitor front-end /spl Sigma/-/spl Delta/ modulator operating at 1 MHz with chopper stabilization and correlated double sampling technique, can resolve a capacitance of 10 aF over a dynamic range of 120 dB in a 1 Hz BW. The measured input referred noise floor of the accelerometer-CMOS interface circuit is 1.6/spl mu/g//spl radic/Hz in atmosphere.     

A high-sensitivity silicon accelerometer with a folded-electrode structure

A high-sensitivity capacitive silicon accelerometer with a new device structure is presented in this paper. The structure uses a fixed rigid electrode suspended between a proof mass and a stiff moving electrode to provide differential capacitance measurement and force rebalancing. High sensitivity is achieved by forming a thick silicon proof mass and a narrow uniform air gap over a large area. The mechanical noise floor is reduced by incorporating damping holes in the electrodes. The accelerometer structure is all silicon and is fabricated on a single silicon wafer. The measured sensitivity for a device with 2.6 mm /spl times/ 1 mm proof mass and 1.4 /spl mu/m air gap is /spl ap/11 pF/g per electrode. The calculated mechanical noise floor for the same device is 0.18 /spl mu/g//spl radic/Hz at atmosphere.     

A CMOS-MEMS mirror with curled-hinge comb drives

A micromirror achieves up to /spl plusmn/4.7/spl deg/ angular displacement with 18 Vdc by a comb-drive design that uses vertical angled offset of the comb fingers. Structures are made from a combination of CMOS interconnect layers and a thick underlying silicon layer. Electrical isolation of the silicon fingers is realized with a slight silicon undercut etch, which disconnects sufficiently narrow pieces of silicon under the CMOS microstructures. The 1 mm by 1 mm micromirror is made of an approximately 40 /spl mu/m-thick single-crystal silicon plate coated with aluminum from the CMOS interconnect stack. The mirror has a peak-to-peak curling of 0.5 /spl mu/m. Fabrication starts with a conventional CMOS process followed by dry-etch micromachining steps. There is no need for wafer bonding and accurate front-to-backside alignment. Such capability has potential applications in biomedical imaging, optical switches, optical scanners, interferometric systems, and vibratory gyroscopes.     

Piezoelectric Al/sub 0.3/Ga/sub 0.7/As longitudinal mode bar resonators

This paper reports the modeling, fabrication, and experimental characterization of piezoelectric longitudinal mode bar resonators based on thin film single crystal Al/sub 0.3/Ga/sub 0.7/ As. Fabricated resonators with lengths ranging from 1000 /spl mu/m to 100 /spl mu/m have been characterized for operation in their first five odd longitudinal modes. Resonance frequencies range from 2.5 to 75 MHz, with quality factors up to 25 390 at 21.8 MHz in vacuum. Power handling capacity as high as -2.6 dBm is demonstrated at 18.8 MHz. Motional resistance and temperature stability of the resonators are also evaluated.     

Design and fabrication of a micromachined planar patch-clamp substrate with integrated microfluidics for single-cell measurements

We have designed, fabricated, tested, and integrated microfabricated planar patch-clamp substrates and poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microfluidic components. Substrates with cell-patch-site aperture diameters ranging from 300nm to 12 /spl mu/m were produced using standard MEMS-fabrication techniques. The resistance of the cell-patch sites and substrate capacitance were measured using impedance spectroscopy. The resistance of the microfabricated apertures ranged from 200 k/spl Omega/ to 47 M/spl Omega/ for apertures ranging from 12 /spl mu/m to 750 nm, respectively. The substrate capacitance was 17.2 pF per mm/sup 2/ of fluid contact area for substrates with a 2-/spl mu/m-thick layer of silicon dioxide. In addition, the ability of the planar patch-clamp substrates to form high-resistance seals in excess of 1 G/spl Omega/ has been confirmed using Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO-K1). Testing shows that the microfluidic components are appropriate for driving human embryonic kidney cells (HEK 293) to patch apertures, for trapping cells on patch apertures, and for exchanging the extracellular fluid environment.     

Mechanical characterization and design of flexible silicon microstructures

A variety of different silicon structures has been fabricated and characterized mechanically to optimize the design of silicon ribbon cables used in neural probes and multichip packaging structures. Boron-doped 3-/spl mu/m-thick silicon beams were tested in three modes: bending in plane, twisting (along beam axis), and pushing. Various cable configurations were investigated (straight beams, curved beams, meandered beams, etc.) as well the effects of length, width, cable termination, and the presence of reinforcing spans between multistranded cables. The results along with finite element modeling indicated that many simple modifications could be made to increase the strength and flexibility of silicon ribbon cables. One structure, a meandered beam 200-/spl mu/m wide and 2-mm long could be twisted up to 712/spl deg/. It also was seen that structures having multiple 20-/spl mu/m-wide beams were generally more robust than those with a single 500-/spl mu/m-wide beam. Finally, a method for easy determination of the bending fracture strain is analyzed and verified. It was seen that the silicon structures tested broke after a strain slightly above 2%.     

Design and nonlinear servo control of MEMS mirrors and their performance in a large port-count optical switch

In this paper, we demonstrate full closed-loop control of electrostatically actuated double-gimbaled MEMS mirrors and use them in an optical cross-connect. We show switching times of less than 10 ms and optical power stability of better than 0.2 dB. The mirrors, made from 10-/spl mu/m-thick single-crystal silicon and with a radius of 400-450 /spl mu/m, are able to tilt to 8/spl deg/ corresponding to 80% of touchdown angle. This is achieved using a nonlinear closed-loop control algorithm, which also results in a maximum actuation voltage of 85 V, and a pointing accuracy of less than 150 /spl mu/rad. This paper will describe the MEMS mirror and actuator design, modeling, servo design, and measurement results.     

High-Q UHF micromechanical radial-contour mode disk resonators

A micromechanical, laterally vibrating disk resonator, fabricated via a technology combining polysilicon surface-micromachining and metal electroplating to attain submicron lateral capacitive gaps, has been demonstrated at frequencies as high as 829 MHz and with Q's as high as 23 000 at 193 MHz. Furthermore, the resonators have been demonstrated operating in the first three radial contour modes, allowing a significant frequency increase without scaling the device, and a 193 MHz resonator has been shown operating at atmospheric pressure with a Q of 8,880, evidence that vacuum packaging is not necessary for many applications. These results represent an important step toward reaching the frequencies required by the RF front-ends in wireless transceivers. The geometric dimensions necessary to reach a given frequency are larger for this contour-mode than for the flexural-modes used by previous resonators. This, coupled with its unprecedented Q value, makes this disk resonator a choice candidate for use in the IF and RF stages of future miniaturized transceivers. Finally, a number of measurement techniques are demonstrated, including two electromechanical mixing techniques, and evaluated for their ability to measure the performance of sub-optimal (e.g., insufficiently small capacitive gap, limited dc-bias), high-frequency, high-Q micromechanical resonators under conditions where parasitic effects could otherwise mask motional output currents. [1051].     

A low-temperature thin-film electroplated metal vacuum package

This paper presents a packaging technology that employs an electroplated nickel film to vacuum seal a MEMS structure at the wafer level. The package is fabricated in a low-temperature (<250/spl deg/C) 3-mask process by electroplating a 40-/spl mu/m-thick nickel film over an 8-/spl mu/m sacrificial photoresist that is removed prior to package sealing. A large fluidic access port enables an 800/spl times/800 /spl mu/m package to be released in less than three hours. MEMS device release is performed after the formation of the first level package. The maximum fabrication temperature of 250/spl deg/C represents the lowest temperature ever reported for thin film packages (previous low /spl sim/400/spl deg/C). Implementation of electrical feedthroughs in this process requires no planarization. Several mechanisms, based upon localized melting and Pb/Sn solder bumping, for sealing low fluidic resistance feedthroughs have been investigated. This package has been fabricated with an integrated Pirani gauge to further characterize the different sealing technologies. These gauges have been used to establish the hermeticity of the different sealing technologies and have measured a sealing pressure of /spl sim/1.5 torr. Short-term (/spl sim/several weeks) reliability data is also presented.     

Characterization of selective polysilicon deposition for MEMS resonator tuning

Variations in micromachining processes cause submicron differences in the size of MEMS devices, which leads to frequency scatter in resonators. A new method of compensating for fabrication process variations is to add material to MEMS structures by the selective deposition of polysilicon. It is performed by electrically heating the MEMS in a 25/spl deg/C silane environment to activate the local decomposition of the gas. On a (1.0/spl times/1.5/spl times/100) /spl mu/m/sup 3/, clamped-clamped, polysilicon beam, at a power dissipation of 2.38 mW (peak temperature of 699/spl deg/C), a new layer of polysilicon (up to 1 /spl mu/m thick) was deposited in 10 min. The deposition rate was three times faster than conventional LPCVD rates for polysilicon. When selective polysilicon deposition (SPD) was applied to the frequency tuning of specially-designed, comb-drive resonators, a correlation was found between the change in resonant frequency and the length of the newly deposited material (the hotspot) on the resonator's suspension beams. A second correlation linked the length of the hotspot to the magnitude of the power fluctuation during the deposition trial. The mechanisms for changing resonant frequency by the SPD process include increasing mass and stiffness and altering residual stress. The effects of localized heating are presented. The experiments and simulations in this work yield guidelines for tuning resonators to a target frequency.     

An optically powered wireless telemetry module for high-temperature MEMS sensing and communication

A high-temperature, low-power silicon tunnel diode oscillator transmitter with an on-board optical power converter is proposed for harsh environment MEMS sensing and wireless data telemetry applications. The prototype sensing and transmitting module employs a MEMS silicon capacitive pressure sensor performing pressure to frequency conversion and a spiral loop serving as an inductor for the LC tank resonator and also as a transmitting antenna. A GaAs photodiode converts an incoming laser beam to an electrical energy for powering the prototype design. The system achieves a telemetry performance up to 250/spl deg/C over a distance of 1.5 m with a transmitter power consumption of approximately 60 /spl mu/W.     

Bulk Lateral MEM Resonator on Thin SOI With High $Q$ -Factor

The fabrication, design, and characterization of high-quality factor microelectromechanical (MEM) resonators fabricated on thin-film silicon-on-insulators (SOIs) are addressed in this paper. In particular, we investigate laterally vibrating bulk-mode resonators based on connected parallel beams [parallel beam resonators (PBRs)]. The experimental characteristics of PBRs are compared to disk resonators and rectangular plate resonators. All the reported MEM resonators are fabricated on 1.25-mum SOI substrates by a hard mask and deep reactive-ion etching process, resulting in transduction gaps smaller than 200 nm. Additionally, this fabrication process allows the growth of a thermal silicon dioxide layer on the resonators, which is used to compensate the resonance-frequency dependence on temperature. Quality factors Q, ranging from 20 000 at 32 MHz up to 100 000 at 24.6 MHz, are experimentally demonstrated. The motional resistances R _m are compared for different designs, and values as low as 55 kOmega at 18 V of bias voltage are obtained with the thin SOI substrate. The thermal sensitivity of the resonance frequency is investigated from 200 K to 360 K, showing values of -15 ppm/K for the PBRs, with a possible compensation of 2 ppm/K when using 20 nm of SiO₂.     

High aspect-ratio combined poly and single-crystal silicon (HARPSS)MEMS technology

This paper presents a single-wafer high aspect-ratio micromachining technology capable of simultaneously producing tens to hundreds of micrometers thick electrically isolated poly and single-crystal silicon microstructures. High aspect-ratio polysilicon structures are created by refilling hundreds of micrometers deep trenches with polysilicon deposited over a sacrificial oxide layer. Thick single-crystal silicon structures are released from the substrate through the front side of the wafer by means of a combined directional and isotropic silicon dry etch and are protected on the sides by refilled trenches. This process is capable of producing electrically isolated polysilicon and silicon electrodes as tall as the main body structure with various size capacitive air gaps ranging from submicrometer to tens of micrometers. Using bent-beam strain sensors, residual stress in 80-μm-thick 4-μm-wide trench-refilled vertical polysilicon beams fabricated in this technology has been measured to be virtually zero. 300-μm-long 80-μm-thick polysilicon clamped-clamped beam micromechanical resonators have shown quality factors as high as 85 000 in vacuum. The all-silicon feature of this technology improves long-term stability and temperature sensitivity, while fabrication of large-area vertical pickoff electrodes with submicrometer gap spacing will increase the sensitivity of micro-electromechanical devices by orders of magnitude     

Thermoelastic damping in fine-grained polysilicon flexural beam resonators

The design and fabrication of polysilicon flexural beam resonators with very high mechanical quality factors (Q) is essential for many MEMS applications. Based on an extension of the well-established theory of thermoelastic damping in homogeneous beams, we present closed-form expressions to estimate an upper bound on the attainable quality factors of polycrystalline beam resonators with thickness (h) much larger than the average grain size (d). Associated with each of these length scales is an independent damping mechanism; we refer to them as Zener and intracrystalline thermoelastic damping, respectively. For representative polysilicon beam resonators (h = 2 /spl mu/m; d = 0.1 /spl mu/m) at 300 K, the predicted critical frequencies for these two mechanisms are /spl sim/7 MHz and /spl sim/14 GHz, respectively. The model is consistent with data from the literature in the sense that the measured values approach, but do not exceed, the calculated thermoelastic limit. From the viewpoint of the maximum attainable Q, our model suggests that single-crystal silicon, rather than fine-grained polysilicon, is the material of choice for the fabrication of flexural beam resonators for applications in the gigahertz frequency range.     

VHF single-crystal silicon elliptic bulk-mode capacitive disk resonators-part I: design and modeling

This work, the first of two parts, presents the design and modeling of VHF single-crystal silicon (SCS) capacitive disk resonators operating in their elliptical bulk resonant mode. The disk resonators are modeled as circular thin-plates with free edge. A comprehensive derivation of the mode shapes and resonant frequencies of the in-plane vibrations of the disk structures is described using the two-dimensional (2-D) elastic theory. An equivalent mechanical model is extracted from the elliptic bulk-mode shape to predict the dynamic behavior of the disk resonators. Based on the mechanical model, the electromechanical coupling and equivalent electrical circuit parameters of the disk resonators are derived. Several considerations regarding the operation, performance, and temperature coefficient of frequency of these devices are further discussed. This model is verified in part II of this paper, which describes the implementation and characterization of the SCS capacitive disk resonators.