Determining the Poisson's ratio of thin film materials using resonant method

In this study, a resonant technique to characterize the Poisson's ratio of thin film materials is proposed. The diagnostic micromachined cantilevers are fabricated using the thin film to be determined. The Poisson's ratio of the thin film can be determined after the bending and torsional vibration modes are measured. To obtain cantilevers with prismatic cross section, the micromachined beams were fabricated on the (1 1 1) silicon substrate. The primary advantage of this technique is that the error of Poisson's ratio due to the deviation of film thickness can be significantly reduced. In application of this technique, the Poisson's ratio of thermally grown silicon dioxide is measured to be 0.202 +/- 0.021. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.