Edge-induced flattening in the fabrication of ultrathin freestanding crystalline silicon sheets

Silicon nanomembranes are suspended single-crystal sheets of silicon, tens of nanometers thick, with areas in the thousands of square micrometers. Challenges in fabrication arise from buckling due to strains of over 10−3 in the silicon-on-insulator starting material. In equilibrium, the distortion i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2013-01, Vol.102 (3)
Main Authors: Gopalakrishnan, Gokul, Czaplewski, David A., McElhinny, Kyle M., Holt, Martin V., Silva-Martínez, Juan C., Evans, Paul G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Deviation
Distortion
Flattening
Membranes
Nanocomposites
Nanomaterials
Nanostructure
Silicon
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Summary:Silicon nanomembranes are suspended single-crystal sheets of silicon, tens of nanometers thick, with areas in the thousands of square micrometers. Challenges in fabrication arise from buckling due to strains of over 10−3 in the silicon-on-insulator starting material. In equilibrium, the distortion is distributed across the entire membrane, minimizing the elastic energy with a large radius of curvature. We show that flat nanomembranes can be created using an elastically metastable configuration driven by the silicon-water surface energy. Membranes as thin as 6 nm are fabricated with vertical deviations below 10 nm in a central 100 μm × 100 μm area.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.4789553