Characterization of thin film stress for MEMS planarization

The synthesis and stress characterization of metal thin-films deposited on silicon wafers were performed on this project. Two different deposition techniques were employed: magnetron sputtering and Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). Moreover, different tests were executed varying deposition conditions, such as temperature and deposition equipment. On the other hand, the metal thin-film’s thickness was also varied. The previous experiments provided us with an in-depth understanding of how the stress of a certain metal thin-film deposited on another different metal can be affected by such mentioned conditions. For our study, the stresses of fourteen metal thin-films were computed, this involves Aluminum Nitride (AlN), Platinum (Pt), Alumina (Al2O3) and double-component based thin-films such as AlN/Pt and Ti/Pt.