AVS 56th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Tribology Focus Topic Wednesday Sessions
       Session TR+SE-WeA

Paper TR+SE-WeA4
Quantitative Measurements of Adhesion Forces in Polycrystalline Silicon Surfaces via a Doubly Clamped Beam Test Structure

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 3:00 pm, Room C4

Session: Advances in Surface Engineering for Friction and Wear Control
Presenter: I. Laboriante, University of California - Berkeley
Authors: I. Laboriante, University of California - Berkeley
B. Bush, University of California - Berkeley
G. Li, University of California - Berkeley
C. Carraro, University of California - Berkeley
R. Maboudian, University of California - Berkeley
Correspondent: Click to Email
Current state of knowledge indicates that the prevalence of static adhesion in microstructures remains one of the major hurdles preventing a larger number of MEMS-based products from entering the mainstream, and quantitative understanding of this phenomenon is currently lacking. This is due to the fact that contact mechanics at the micro-/nanoscale are a complicated multiscale problem, in particular when one is dealing with rough and rigid impacting surfaces. The results of investigations aimed at elucidating the adhesion force between co-planar, impacting polycrystalline silicon surfaces will be presented using a microfabricated doubly clamped cantilever beam test structure. The effect of apparent area of contact will be examined via microfabricated dimples of varying size. Determination of adhesion forces through systematic optical interferometric measurements will be presented. The data reveal a weak dependence of adhesion on the apparent contact area, instead of scaling with the contact area. Possible mechanisms leading to this behavior will be discussed.