Micro-mechanical testing of SiLK by nanoindentation and substrate curvature techniques

Advanced micro-mechanical characterization methods provide material properties of thin films for modeling thermo-mechanical behavior of thin films for micro-electronic applications. Here, we focus on the local measurement method of nanoindentation for finding visco-elastic properties, and a global method of substrate curvature testing that provides linear elastic properties. Our specimen SiLK, Dow chemicals, is a low-k dielectric thin polymer film with a thickness of 400 nm, 6 and 8 µm, deposited on Si substrate. Our results show temperature dependent linear elastic and linear visco-elastic material properties for thin film materials.