Van-der Waals thin-film C60 MEMS

We report on the first-ever pristine C₆₀ (fullerene) surface micromachined structures fabricated using an all-dry etch process. These structures are used to measure the C₆₀ thin film MEMS electromechanical properties. These properties indicate that C₆₀ is promising for realizing useful boundary conditions for MEMS resonators, and stiction properties for MEMS and NEMS switch applications. The clamped-clamped and clamped-free beams are fabricated with XeF₂ silicon-etch process, with negligible damage to the fullerene films ensuring that predictable C₆₀ material properties can be realized in MEMS. Under substrate-attached-PZT excitation, the resonance responses of the cantilevers and beams are measured with a laser interferometer. The elastic properties of the C₆₀ film are thus obtained from the measured resonance frequencies.