High-Q thin-film silicon resonators processed at temperatures below 110°C on glass and plastic substrates

This work reports on the fabrication and characterization of thin-film silicon micromachined bridge resonators processed at temperatures below 110°C on glass and plastic substrates. The microelectromechanical structures are electrostatically actuated and the resulting deflection is optically monitored as a function of the geometrical dimensions and the measurement pressure. Resonance frequencies in the MHz range are detected. Quality factors up to 5000 are observed in vacuum for the microresonators on glass substrates, while the quality factors for similar bridges on plastic substrates are more than one order of magnitude lower. The elementary energy dissipation processes in hydrogenated amorphous silicon based resonators are discussed.