Measuring Young's modulus of polysilicon via cantilever microbeam arrays

Polysilicon is the most commonly used material for MEMS. Consequently, the Young's modulus of polysilicon is very important for MEMS design. Measurements of this material parameter can easily be erroneous due to fabrication tolerances, like etch loss variations. The presented method separates etch loss variations from the desired measurement by using an array of micro cantilevers. The measured Young's modulus of 164.1 GPa has a small standard deviation of 0.5 GPa, in comparison to other published data.