Ni-electroplating of double-width micro-cantilever

摘要

Micro-electroplating technology has an increasingly wider application in the fabrication of MEMS devices. In order to fabricate a double-width cantilever beam which has three different electroplated areas. The proper composition of the bath solution is obtained through experiments firstly in the paper. Then the effects of the peak of current density, duty cycle and pause time on the surface morphology of the electroplated nickel are studied experimentally to make sure the regulating range of pulsed parameters. And at last the double-width cantilever beam is fabricated using lithographic, micro-electroplating and sacrificial layer releasing processes. The results show that the surface of the beam is bright and smooth, and the nucleation rate increases steadily. But the thickness of the three parts with different width is different which can be modified by increasing the duty cycle and reducing the current density to some extent.