Effects of Sample Geometry and Grain Size on Mechanical Property of Electrodeposited Gold Evaluated By Micro-Bending Test
Authors: Suzuki Kosuke , Chien Yu-An , Hashigata Ken , Asano Keisuke , Chen Chun-Yi , Chang Tso-Fu Mark , Yamane Daisuke , Ito Hiroyuki , Machida Katsuyuki , Masu Kazuya , Sone Masato 
Published: December 2020

In recent years, MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) devices are required to have high functionality and small size, especially for MEMS acceleration sensors, and sensitivity of a MEMS acceleration sensor is highly dependent on the Brownian noise [1,2]. The Brown noise is known to be inversely proportional to mass of movable parts in the sensor, and the noise is lowered by increasing the mass [1,2], which implies a number of volume is needed to ensure high sensitivity. However, increasing size of the component is not preferable. Because of this, a design of gold-based MEMS acceleration sensor is proposed. The density of gold is 19.3 g/cm3, and gold has high corrosion resistance and chemical stability. Most importantly, gold electrodeposition process can be easily integrated with current MEMS fabrication process.

Mechanical properties of the material are essential informtion for design of MEMS components. For instance, the yield stress is needed to guarantee elastic deformation of the material during operation of the MEMS device. Mechanical properties of metallic materials are known to change with size of the sample used in a mechanical property characterization becomes smaller than micrometer scale, which is known as the sample size effect [3]. Therefore, mechanical property characterization of materials toward MEMS should be conducted using samples having the same dimensions as those used in MEMS. Various micro-mechanical testing methods have been developed to characterize micro-specimens, such as micro-compression test, micro-tensile test, and micro-bending test. Among them, micro-bending test is suggested to be the most suitable method to evaluate materials for applications in MEMS when compared with micro-compression and micro-tensile tests since cantilever-like structure is commonly utilized in movable components, such as the micro-spring in MEMS accelerometers. On the other hand, micro-cantilevers are reported to have the sample geometry effect [4], which the sample size effect is only observed when varying thickness of the micro-cantilever. Also, it has been reported that the sample size effect is dependent on ratio of the sample diameter to the average grain size, and materials prepared by electrodeposition are usually polycrystal. Thus, relationship between the sample geometry effect and the average grain size is investigated in this study.

Two gold films were electrodeposited at different current density to change the average grain size. The average grain size was determined by electron backscatter diffraction, and the average grain size of film A and B were 1.2~1.3 and 0.6 μm, respectively. Samples used in the micro-bending test were micro-cantilevers fabricated from the gold films by focus ion beam. Thicknesses of the micro-cantilever were ranged from 6.0 to 13 μm. The micro-bending tests are conducted using a test machine specially designed for micro-specimens developed in our group as shown in Fig. 1.

The yield stresses were in a range of 428 to 553MPa, which were all higher than that of the bulk gold (55 to 220 MPa). Table 1 shows the detailed dimensions and yield stress of all samples. Yield stresses were plotted against the log scale of thickness shown in Fig. 2. At first, the sample geometry effect was confirmed in samples fabricated from both film A and B. Then, the yield stresses of samples fabricated from film B were all higher than those of film A, which was a result of the Hall-Petch relationship. In Fig. 2, the slop was steeper for film A indicating the sample geometry effect was more obvious in samples composed of larger grains.

[1] D. Yamane, T. Konishi, T. Matsushima, K. Machida, H. Toshiyoshi, and K. Masu, Appl Phys Lett 104 (2014) 074102

[2] K. Machida, T. Konishi, D. Yamane, H. Toshiyoshi, K. Masu, ECS Trans. 61 (2014) 21-39.

[3] J.R. Greer and J.Th.M. De Hosson: Plasticity in small-sized metallic systems: Intrinsic versus extrinsic size effect. Prog. Mater. Sci. 56, 654 (2011).

[4] K. Suzuki, “Sample Geometry Effect on Mechanical Property of Electrodeposited Gold Evaluated by Micro-Bending Test", 45th International Conference on Micro & Nano Engineering (MNE2019), Rhodes Greece, Sep. 2019

Figure 1