Mechanical Properties of Electrodeposited Permalloy Thin Film Measured by using a Tensile Test

In order to improve the reliability of Micro-electro-mechanical Systems (MEMS) designs, evaluations of the mechanical properties of soft magnetic materials are needed. In this paper, we present a tensile testing method to characterize the mechanical properties of microscale electroplated permalloy (80 wt% Ni, 20 wt% Fe) films. The gauge section of the specimen is 50μm wide, 100μm long and 5μm thick. The measured Young's modulus of permalloy films is 113 GPa, and the tensile strength is 1.57 GPa. Both the properties are lower than those of thick permalloy films. The fracture strain measured by the images of specimens is about 2%.