Buckling of Thin Films in Nano-Scale

Mechanics Department, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

^a e-mail: shbwang@tju.edu.cn

Abstract

Investigation of thin film buckling is important for life prediction of MEMS device which are damaged mainly by the delamination and buckling of thin films. In this paper the mechanical and thermal properties of compressed thin film titanium films with 150 nm thickness deposited on an organic glass substrate under mechanical and thermal loads were measured and characterized. In order to simulate the thin films which subjected to compound loads and the buckle modes the external uniaxial compression and thermal loading were subjected to the specimen by the symmetric loading device and the electrical film in this experiment. The temperature of the thin film deposited on substrate was measured using thermoelectric couple. The range of temperature accords with the temperature range of the MEMS. It is found that the size and number of the delamination and buckling of the film are depended upon the pre-fixed mechanical loading and thermal temperature. The thermal transient conduction and thermal stability of the film and substrate was studied with finite element method.