Title: Indentation on very smooth silicon wafers

Authors: W.M. Huang, H. Fan, S.C. Leng

Addresses: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Republic of Singapore 639798. ' School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Republic of Singapore 639798. ' School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Republic of Singapore 639798

Abstract: At present, indentation is considered as the most convenient approach for characterising materials for MEMS and even NEMS devices. Here, we demonstrate that a very slight change in the average surface roughness (R_a) of a commercial silicon wafer, that is, from 1.6 to 4.4 nm, can dramatically alter the indentation result. Another surface condition, namely, wetting, is also influential. Since it is not easy to quantitatively describe the effects of the interface between the indenter and tested material, the results of indentation test, as an approach for revealing the properties of a material, should be treated with great cautions.

Keywords: indentation; hardness; elastic constant; wetting; surface roughness; size effect; friction; MEMS; microelectromechanical systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCMSSE.2009.027490

International Journal of Computational Materials Science and Surface Engineering, 2009 Vol.2 No.3/4, pp.335 - 341

Published online: 28 Jul 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article