Mechanical characteristics of multilayer MEMS components

The basic structures of MEMS sensing elements are mechanical parts like microbridge, microcantilever and micromembrane. One way of characterizing the performance of these flexible microcomponents is by defining their relevant stiffness. Stiffness is a fundamental criterion of elastically-deformable mechanical flexible microcomponents. The aim of this paper is to determine the experimental and theoretical stiffness of multilayer microcantilevers. The AFM experimental test was performed also for a multilayer microcantilever fabricated from gold and SU-8. The Young's modulus of Au and Al are nearly identical, and using the same geometrical dimensions, the values of the cantilever stiffness are also in the same range.