Initiation of nano-film bucklings under low-frequency alternate loads

In this paper, we investigated the initiation of the straight-side buckling of the compressed thin film on flat PMMA substrate under alternate loads, with emphasis on the influences of loading frequency, film thickness and load amplitude on the initiation of the buckling, respectively. A fatigue-loading device based on piezoelectric ceramics has been designed for making the cyclic loadings available. The instability phenomenon has been recorded using a CCD camera and an optical microscope. The aluminum and copper thin films were studied in the experiments, the different loading modes have been involved in detailed experimental analysis. At present, experimental investigations of thin film buckling under cyclic load may be an efficient engineering solution in many practical fields such as micro-electro-mechanical systems(MEMS).