Temperature Dependent Mechanical Properties of Doped Silicon Microcantilevers

This paper reports temperature dependent resonance frequency and quality factor of microcantilevers over the temperature range 25-175degC. Either local heating from integrated solid state resistors or uniform heating on a hotplate were employed. The microcantilevers were made of either boron-doped or phosphorus-doped single crystalline silicon. Both cantilever types showed decreasing resonant frequency with increasing temperature, and the cantilever mechanical quality factor was not a function of temperature over the temperature range tested. The presence of a silicon dioxide layer adjacent to the cantilever can affect the cantilever mechanical response, and so care must be taken to eliminate this layer.