Edge-induced flattening in the fabrication of ultrathin freestanding crystalline silicon sheets
Abstract
Silicon nanomembranes are suspended single-crystal sheets of silicon, tens of nanometers thick, with areas in the thousands of square micrometers. Challenges in fabrication arise from buckling due to strains of over 10−3 in the silicon-on-insulator starting material. In equilibrium, the distortion is distributed across the entire membrane, minimizing the elastic energy with a large radius of curvature. We show that flat nanomembranes can be created using an elastically metastable configuration driven by the silicon-water surface energy. Membranes as thin as 6 nm are fabricated with vertical deviations below 10 nm in a central 100 μm × 100 μm area.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jan 21, 2013
- Source ID
- 10.1063/1.4789553
Entities
People
- David A Czaplewski
- Gokul Gopalakrishnan
- Juan C. Silva-martínez
- Kyle M. Mcelhinny
- Martin V Holt
- Paul G. Evans
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Argonne National Laboratory
- United States Department of Energy
- University of Wisconsin–Madison