High Toughness and Moisture Insensitive Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Carbide Films for MEMS/NEMS

摘要

This research characterized the mechanical behavior including cohesive fracture energy of a range of a-SiC:H films. Fracture energy increased with film Young's modulus. Surprisingly, some non-stoichiometric a-SiC:H films exhibited remarkablyhigh cohesive fracture energy which was rationalized in terms of the onset of local crack tip plastic deformation. We also found that the a-SiC:H films exhibited an almost complete insensitivity to moisture assisted cracking. The cracking that was observed could be modeled with a thermally assisted crack growth theory.