Analysis of polysilicon micro beams buckling with temperature-dependent properties

Abstract: The suspended electrothermal polysilicon micro beams generate displacements and forces by thermal buckling effects. In the previous electro-thermal and thermo-elastic models of suspended polysilicon micro beams, the thermo-mechanical properties of polysilicon have been considered constant over a wide rang of temperature (20- 900 degrees C). In reality, the thermo-mechanical properties of polysilicon depend on temperature and change significantly at high temperatures. This paper describes the development and validation of theoretical and Finite Element Model (FEM) including the temperature dependencies of polysilicon properties such as thermal expansion coefficient and Young's modulus. In the theoretical models, two parts of elastic deflection model and thermal elastic model of micro beams buckling have been established and simulated. Also, temperature dependent buckling of polysilicon micro beam under high temperature has been modeled by Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Analytical results and numerical results using FEA are compared with experimental data available in literature. Their reasonable agreement validates analytical model and FEM. This validation indicates the importance of including temperature dependencies of polysilicon thermo-mechanical properties such as Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) in the previous models.