Ultra-Thin Free-Standing Single Crystalline Silicon Membranes With Strain Control

Abstract

We report on fabrication and characterization of ultra-thin suspended single crystalline flat silicon membranes with thickness down to 6 nm. We have developed a method to control the strain in the membranes by adding a strain compensating frame on the silicon membrane perimeter to avoid buckling of the released membranes. We show that by changing the properties of the frame the strain of the membrane can be tuned in controlled manner. Consequently, both the mechanical properties and the band structure can be engineered and the resulting membranes provide a unique laboratory to study low-dimensional electronic, photonic and phononic phenomena.

References in corpus (3)

• Optomechanical Crystals
• Phonons in Slow Motion: Dispersion Relations in Ultra-Thin Si Membranes
• Strain control of electron-phonon energy loss rate in many-valley semiconductors

Cited by in corpus (6)

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• Thermoelectric bolometers based on ultra-thin heavily doped single-crystal silicon membranes
• Nano-thermoelectric infrared bolometers
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• Infrared Bolometers Based on 40-nm-Thick Nano-Thermoelectric Silicon Membranes
• Strain effects in phosphorous bound exciton transitions in silicon