Silicon cantilever beam micromachining and structure geometry characterization

A method to etch cantilever beams oriented in the <100> direction on (100) silicon wafers is presented. Backetching of the wafer, heavily doped boron etch stop, or anodic oxidation etch stop are not necessary. The method requires only two levels of masking and uses silicon dioxide as passivation material. Two techniques that offer information about the surface topography, SEM (scanning electron microscopy) and WLI (white light interferometry), were used.