Adhesion/Stiction and Friction Studies of Nano/Micro-Textured Surfaces Produced by Crystallization of Amorphous Silicon

This paper reports a new method of nano/micro surface-texturing and the results of systematic studies of adhesion/stiction and friction properties on the textured surfaces produced by this method. Nano/micro-textured surfaces with various roughnesses were produced by low temperature aluminum-induced crystallization of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposited (PECVD) amorphous silicon. Adhesion/stiction experiments on these nano/microtextured and non-textured surfaces were performed using two diamond tips under predefined displacement profiles with different maximum indentation displacements. Friction experiments on the textured and non-textured surfaces were conducted using the same tips under various normal contact forces. The adhesion/stiction forces and coefficients of friction (COF) of the textured surfaces were found to be much smaller than those of non-textured surfaces.