Polarimetric analysis of stress anisotropy in nanomechanical silicon nitride resonators

We realise a circular gray-field polariscope to image stress-induced birefringence in thin (sub-micron thick) silicon nitride membranes and strings. This enables quantitative mapping of the orientation of principal stresses and stress anisotropy, complementary to, and in agreement with, finite eleme...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2017-05, Vol.110 (18)
Main Authors: Capelle, T., Tsaturyan, Y., Barg, A., Schliesser, A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anisotropy
Applied physics
Birefringence
Finite element method
General Physics
Mechanics
Membranes
Optics
Physics
Polarimetry
Polariscopes
Silicon nitride
Stress analysis
Strings
Structural mechanics
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Summary:We realise a circular gray-field polariscope to image stress-induced birefringence in thin (sub-micron thick) silicon nitride membranes and strings. This enables quantitative mapping of the orientation of principal stresses and stress anisotropy, complementary to, and in agreement with, finite element modeling. Furthermore, using a sample with a well-known stress anisotropy, we extract a value for the photoelastic (Brewster) coefficient of silicon nitride, C ≈ (3.4 ± 0.1) × 10−6 MPa−1. We explore possible applications of the method to analyse and quality-control stressed membranes with phononic crystal patterns.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.4982876