pp. 2143-2157
S&M1665 Research Paper of Special Issue https://doi.org/10.18494/SAM.2018.1946 Published: September 28, 2018 Parallel Tensile Testing of Single-crystal Silicon Microstructures with Integrated Piezoresistive Strain Gauges [PDF] Akio Uesugi, Yoshikazu Hirai, Toshiyuki Tsuchiya, and Osamu Tabata (Received March 29, 2018; Accepted July 23, 2018) Keywords: single-crystal silicon, MEMS, tensile testing, parallel testing, strain gauge
A parallel testing method has been proposed with integrated strain gauges based on the piezoresistive effect to shorten the testing time for investigating tensile-mode fatigue characteristics of single-crystal silicon (SCS). The method allows a high loading frequency (~110 Hz) owing to the high stiffness of the testing system and reduces the testing time per specimen by parallelization. Five specimens were integrated on a testing chip and subjected to a pulling force simultaneously using a piezoelectric actuator. The parallel portion of the specimen was 2.5 µm wide, 22 µm thick, and 120 µm long. The strain gauge connected to each gauge part consisted of an array of five straight beams 100 µm in length and 2.5 µm in width. The one-active-gauge bridge was used and three reference registers of identical shape were also placed in series on the chip. The strain gauges successfully monitored the force on each specimen with sufficiently low noise for testing. The five specimens on the chip fractured at the same time, showing a tensile strength of 1.5 GPa. Because of the finite stiffness of the test system, there is coupling between the integrated specimens. However, the total displacement during parallel testing was sufficiently small (~15 µm) such that the system has the potential to operate with a loading frequency of 110 Hz for fatigue testing.
Corresponding author: Toshiyuki TsuchiyaCite this article Akio Uesugi, Yoshikazu Hirai, Toshiyuki Tsuchiya, and Osamu Tabata, Parallel Tensile Testing of Single-crystal Silicon Microstructures with Integrated Piezoresistive Strain Gauges, Sens. Mater., Vol. 30, No. 9, 2018, p. 2143-2157. |