Influences of Specimen Size and Annealing Temperature on Mechanical Reliability of FIB-Fabricated Si Nanowires for NEMS

This paper describes the effects of specimen size, focused ion beam (FIB) induced damage, and annealing on the mechanical properties of sub-100nm-sized silicon (Si) nanowires (NWs) that were evaluated by means of uniaxial tensile testing. Si NWs were made from silicon-on-nothing membranes that were produced by deep reactive ion etching trench fabrication and ultra-high vacuum (UHV) annealing. FIB system’s probe manipulation and film deposition functions were used to fabricate Si NWs and to directly bond them onto the sample stage of a tensile test device. The mean Young’s modulus and the mean strength of FIB-damaged NWs were 131.0 GPa and 5.6 GPa, respectively. After 700°C and 1000°C annealing in UHV, the mean Young’s modulus was increased to 168.1 GPa and 169.4 GPa, respectively, due to recrystallization by annealing. However, the mean strength was decreased to 4.1 GPa and 4.0 GPa, respectively. These experimental facts imply that the crystallinity of NWs improved, but the morphology was degraded. The surface degradation was probably related to gallium ion implantation into NWs surface during FIB fabrication.