Single crystal silicon supported thin film micromirrors for optical applications

Single crystal silicon supported thin film micromirrors for optical applications Zhimin J. Yao* Noel C. MacDonald Cornell University School of Electrical Engineering and Cornell Nanofabrication Facility Ithaca, New York 14853-5401 E-mail: jyao@dlep1.itg.ti.com Abstract. A novel process for fabrication of single crystal silicon supported torsional micromirrors with large dimensions (300 240 m) is presented. The mirrors consist of a sputtered aluminum film on a layer of supporting oxide mounted on fully suspended single crystal silicon grids. The grids have an aspect ratio of 7:1 to provide a stiff backbone and to ensure flatness of the mirror surface. Thus the mirrors do not bend due to the internal stresses. A new idea of actuation of torsional structures is also presented. Vertical near-comb type actuators were fabricated to drive the torsional structures. 1997 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [S0091-3286(97)01405-0] Subject terms: micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems; micromirrors; vertical actuators; planarization; mechanical polishing; single crystal silicon; single crystal silicon reactive etching and metallization. Paper MEM-11 received Nov. 12, 1996; revised manuscript received Jan. 31, 1997; accepted for publication Feb. 4, 1997. 1 Introduction Integration of electronics and miniaturized optical components can be realized by using micro-electro-mechanical systems MEMS technology combined with micro-optics, and is sometimes referred to as micro-opto-electromechanical systems MOEMS. In MOEMS, optical components like lenses, mirrors, beam splitters, and gratings, use the electrostatic deformation of a mechanical beam or cantilever to manipulate optical beams. Micromirrors have been fabricated for use as display, 1 optical switches, 2,3 and scanners. 4 6 Micromirrors generally consist of a metal thin film, such as Al Refs. 1 and 2 or a combination of several films. 7 The difficulty in fabricating mirrors or membranes with metal or dielectric thin films has been the stress and nonuniformity of the stress created in the film during its formation. This stress within the thin film causes the mirrors to curve up or down depending on the stress state tensile or compressive within the film. The problem is more severe for thin films in the range of hundreds of microns in diameter that is typical of optical microdevices. Polysilicon is used as mirror material. 8,9 The thickness of low pressure chemical vapor deposition LPCVD polysilicon used for mirrors is typically 2 m. In order to fabricate larger mirrors with reasonable rigidity, thicker polysilicon is needed. However, the roughness of the LPCVD polysilicon surface increases as the thickness of the silicon increases. 5 A novel approach to overcome the stresses in thin films and keep the mirror surface flat and rigid is presented in this paper. Single crystal silicon SCS grid structures with an aspect ratio of 7:1 height/width of the SCS beam are used as a support for the mirror thin layer film. The base for the mirror during deposition is provided by a sacrificial *Current affiliation: Texas Instruments, Photonics and Micromachining, 13532 North Central Expressway, MS 77, Dallas, TX 75243. layer that is spun on between the grid supports. Mechanical polishing is used to planarize the sacrificial layer with the grids before deposition of the mirror material. Mechanical polishing is also used to achieve the desired surface smoothness of the mirrors. A new idea of actuation of torsional structures is also presented in this paper. Vertical near-comb type actuators were fabricated to drive the torsional structures. These structures are produced by using the modified single crystal silicon reactive etching and metallization SCREAM. 10,11 In this process, fully released Si beams that are more than 10 m in height can be fabricated. 2 Design The gap between the beams of the supporting grids was 3 m. Two issues were considered in determining this value. First, due to the nature of SCREAM process, to release etch dry etch in SF 6 Si grids in a reasonable time, the gap should not be less than 3 m. On the other hand, the smaller the gaps, the easier it is to planarize the structure; therefore the smallest possible value of grid spacing was chosen. 2.1 Actuation Mechanism The actuation force of torsional micromirrors is commonly provided by parallel plate capacitors. 1 3 However, for bulk micromachining processes, there is difficulty in fabricating parallel plate type actuators on the same chip. For the process presented in this paper, the resulting structure has a gap of at least 20 m between the top of the mirror surface and the substrate. Therefore the voltage required to actuate the device is high if a capacitor type actuator was used. A new approach was taken to produce a vertical-comb type actuator to provide driving forces for the torsional movement. One or two sets of fixed fingers can be placed at the edge s of the structure. A set of fingers is connected to a 1408 Opt. Eng. 36(5) 1408 1413 (May 1997) 0091-3286/97/$10.00 1997 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers

common contact pad. The opposing set of the fingers of the actuator is attached to the movable grid structure and is fabricated along with the grids, thus no extra mask is needed. The whole process requires only two masking levels. The mirror is attracted toward the substrate when a bias is applied, and stays horizontal when bias is released. To save die space, only one set of fingers was placed on the structure, so that the mirrors can deflect in only one direction. 3 Fabrication-Related Issues 3.1 Stress Fully released thin film mirrors tend to curve up or down due to intrinsic tensile or compressive stresses generated within the film during deposition. It is very difficult to produce stress-free thin films. This stress is a function of the film and substrate material properties as well as the deposition conditions. Additionally, thermal stresses due to differences in thermal expansion coefficients of the film and substrate are generated within the film during cooling down from the deposition temperature to room temperature. Thermal stresses in the film can be reduced by performing the metal deposition at relatively low temperatures, like in evaporation or sputtering with the wafer held around room temperature. Metal chemical vapor deposit processes are generally performed in the temperature range of 300 to 500 C, and during cooling, thermal stresses are generated in the film. Hence, in this work, the mirror material was deposited by sputtering to reduce thermal stresses. Polysilicon deposited by PECVD is another alternative, since the thermal expansion coefficients of polysilicon, single crystal silicon, and silicon dioxide are very similar. The film stress can cause a mirror to curve up or down. This effect can be reduced by fabricating the mirror on rigid high aspect ratio silicon grids, which will prevent the mirror from curving due to the stress. The main issue then is to ensure that the film does not delaminate, crack, or have significant plastic deformation in trying to lower its overall strain energy. 3.2 Mirror Material The mirror material should have 1 a smooth surface, 2 high reflectivity at the desired wavelength, 3 good oxidation resistance, 4 low intrinsic stresses during deposition, 5 low thermal stresses if the deposition or any subsequent processes are done at high temperatures and 6 good compatibility with standard very large scale integration VLSI and MEMS processing techniques. Aluminum was chosen as the mirror material in this work, since it can be deposited by low temperature evaporation or sputtering techniques that give a very smooth surface. It is very reflective, has good oxidation resistance, and is extremely compatible with current VLSI processing techniques. On the other hand, its thermal expansion coefficient is very high (24 10 6 / C) when compared to silicon or silicon dioxide ( 0.5 10 6 / C). It will therefore have high thermal stresses if deposited or processed at high temperatures. However, in the modified SCREAM process, the aluminum metallization is done at low temperatures with no subsequent high temperature process, and this issue does not create problems in our case. 3.3 Planarization Planarization can be obtained either by 1 chemical mechanical processing CMP or 2 standard VLSI spin on glass SOG deposition and etch back techniques. CMP is by far the superior technique for global as well as local planarization. It has come to be accepted as a standard and reliable process in the microelectronics industry. Mechanical polishing was utilized in this research, since no CMP equipment was available. We used mechanical polishing to planarize the sacrificial layer with the surface of the silicon grid structure as well as to polish the mirror surface to the required smoothness. Etch back was not attempted, since the authors believed it would be more difficult than using mechanical polishing. 3.4 Selection of the Sacrificial Layer After the support structures are fabricated, the next step is to fill the structure up with a sacrificial layer and planarize the top surface of the structures with the rest of the wafer. The selection of a sacrificial layer is critical. The sacrificial material has to be compatible with the process. It should be applied easily and thick enough to cover all the structures on the top surface. It should be strong enough to support the suspended SCS structures during polishing, which apply a great deal of force on the structures. It needs to be planarized with the rest of the structures on the wafer by polishing or etch back. It should be removed without damaging other materials in the device. Several materials were experimented as a sacrificial material and the results are listed below: PECVD silicon dioxide. It can be used when the difference in height of the structure is rather small less than 6 m, because the deposition is very time consuming and expensive. However, the support structures needed for this fabrication had a difference in height of at least 20 m. Therefore it is impractical to deposit PECVD silicon dioxide as a sacrificial layer. Photoresist. Photoresist was tried as a sacrificial layer. A thick layer 20 to 30 m of resist was spun on the wafer. The wafer was then mechanically polished. Since the resist was very soft, it curved down a few micrometers after polishing, even though polishing was carefully controlled, and hence the surface could not be planarized. Polyimide. Polyimide was spun onto the wafer and then partially cured. It was noticed that the hinges of the support structures were bent down after curing. It is known that polyimides shrink during curing due the evaporation of the solvent. The bending of the hinges indicated that the adhesion between the polyimide and the side wall of the structures was good and there was no delamination between the two due to the shrinkage. Polyimide cannot be used, since the shrinkage caused the nonplanarity of the support structures. In fact, if the polyimide is cured even partially, the large shrinkage actually shears the released beams at the hinges and drags the entire grid structure down. Optical Engineering, Vol. 36 No. 5, May 1997 1409

Yao and MacDonald: Single-crystal silicon supported thin film micromirrors... Fig. 1 SEM photograph of a suspended 3003240 m m mirror support structure. Electroless plating of Ni. Electroless deposition of nickel is a well developed technology. There are a number of commercially available electroless nickel baths that can provide smooth, good quality deposits at rates of 2 to 20 mm/hour. Electroless Ni was deposited on the wafers that had SCS support structures. It selectively deposited on the silicon but not on the silicon dioxide, which is desirable for this process. It makes planarization easy, since it deposits only in the silicon trenches and grows to the top around the released structures without disturbing the structures. The process showed promising results but was not pursued further, since ~1! it was not an integrated circuit standard process and ~2! good results were obtained using cyclotene. Bisbenzocyclobutene. B-staged bisbenzocyclobutene is developed for dielectric coatings for integrated circuit applications. Compared with polyimide, it has low shrinkage and a high degree of planarization ~95%!. It was used as a sacrificial material in this research and exhibited promising results. The drawback of this material is that it cannot be removed in an oxygen plasma and has to be released in a liquid solution. 4 Fabrication Procedure The SCS support structures were fabricated first using the modified SCREAM process.10,11 The starting substrate is a boron-doped ~100! silicon wafer. The detailed fabrication steps are described in Refs. 10 and 11. Figure 1 shows a released SCS mirror support structure. Metallization is not done at this point. That is the difference between these structures and the traditional structures fabricated using the SCREAM process. The entire structure consists of SCS and PECVD oxide on the top and side walls. The suspended structure is supported by the two hinges. The process procedure after the fabrication of the support structures is shown in Fig. 2 and is described below. Spin coat and curing of cyclotene polymer. After the support structures are fabricated, the next step is to spin 1410 Optical Engineering, Vol. 36 No. 5, May 1997 Fig. 2 Process flow starting rom the SCS support structure. (a) SCS support structure, (b) spin coat and cure of polymer, (c) planarization with mechanical polishing, (d) deposition of PECVD oxide and mechanical polishing, (e) photolithography and oxide etch, (f) unisotropic etch of the fingers and side wall oxide, (g) remove of the sacrificial layer, and (h) metallization by sputtering. coat cyclotene onto the wafer. The cyclotene is then cured on a hot plate at 115 C for 4 min followed by curing in a convection oven at 200 C for 1 h. All the solvent in the polymer is evaporated and the polymer is hardened @Fig. 2~b!#. Mechanical polishing. The wafer surface is then mechanically polished using a Buehler polishing cloth and 1-mm alumina powder mixed with water. The wafer is polished until the polymer on the top of the structures is removed. Since the polymer is softer than the silicon dioxide deposited on the silicon structures, it is polished at a higher rate. This results in a nonplanar surface with the silicon structures being higher than the areas of the wafer that are covered by cyclotene. The difference in height depends on the gap between the beams and/or pads. Since the gaps between beams that support the mirrors were all 3 mm, the difference in height on the top of the mirrors was 0.4 mm or less. See Fig. 2~c!.

Fig. 5 Schematic representation of the vertical near-comb actuator. Fig. 3 SEM photograph of four suspended 300 240 m mirrors. Deposition of PECVD silicon dioxide. A layer of 2- m PECVD silicon dioxide is then deposited on the surface of the wafer. The deposition is done at 120 C for 1 h. Mechanical polishing of silicon dioxide. The wafer is then mechanically polished again using alumina powder. About 1 m of the silicon dioxide is removed and the top of the grid structure is planarized. See Fig. 2 d. Photolithography and pattern transfer. Photoresist KTI 895i 50 cs is used as the mask to etch the silicon dioxide and silicon fingers in CHF 3 plasma. The etch rate for Si and SiO 2 is about 1:1. See Figs. 2 e and 2 f. Sacrificial layer removal. The BCB polymer cannot be removed by oxygen plasma. Therefore, it is removed by soaking the wafers in nanostrip mixture of H 2 SO 4 and H 2 O 2 for 1 h followed by a deionized water rinse. The wafer is then dried with a nitrogen gun. See Fig. 2 g. Sputter deposition of aluminum. A layer of 0.2 m of aluminum is then sputter coated on the wafer to provide the mirror surface with a good reflectivity and the metallization on the side walls of the fingers of the actuator Fig. 2 h. Figures 3 and 4 show SEM photographs of the final suspended torsion mirrors. The roughness of the mirror surface is about 70 Å, which is limited by the quality of the polishing wheel. 5 Results, Analysis, and Discussion 5.1 Results A DC bias was applied to the 300 240 m mirrors. The mirrors deflected about 2 m at40v. 5.2 Mechanical Analysis Tosional spring constant K z is K z 2 G a3 b L c 2 L T 1 10 6 N/ m, where is a constant determined by the aspect ratio b/a. It is about 0.3 for the cantilevers in this paper. 12 The shear modulus of the material is G G 5.08 10 10 N/m 2 for Si 100. The width is a, b is the height, and L T is the length of the torsion hinge. Half of the length of the mirror is L c. Due to the complexity of the geometry of the vertical near-comb actuator, it is difficult to obtain a precise value of an actuation force. It was estimated that the actuation force on the mirrors in the z direction is between 1 10 9 V 2 Newton and 3 10 9 V 2 Newton. Based on the calculation of actuation force and the torsional spring constant, for a bias of 40 V, the deflection ( Z) of a 300 240- m mirror should be between 1.6 and 5 m, using the following equation: Z F z /K z. The experimental results fell in this range. 5.3 Discussion Fig. 4 SEM photograph of a suspended 300 240 m mirror. 5.3.1 Actuation forces Fig. 5 shows a schematic representation of the vertical near-comb actuator. The actuation force is primarily contributed by the attraction between the supporting grids and Optical Engineering, Vol. 36 No. 5, May 1997 1411

This force is depended on the gap and the thickness of the Al on the bottom side wall of the movable fingers. However, the actual value of the force is not estimated. 6 Summary A novel process was developed to fabricate flat and rigid torsional micromirrors with SCS support structures. The roughness of the surface is about 70 Å, which is limited by the available equipment. A new approach was taken to use near-comb type actuators in the vertical direction to drive the torsional mirrors. The edge of mirrors (300 240 m) deflected downward for about 2 m at bias of 40 V. The other advantages of this novel process are: Fig. 6 SEM photograph of unsuspended fingers of the near-comb actuator without the mirror blocking the view. the fixed fingers. Due to the undercut of the fixed fingers, an accurate value of force cannot be calculated using the equation for the comb type actuators. There are forces in the mirror plane and perpendicular to the higes of the mirror y direction due to the same actuator that provides the vertical direction driving force. However, this force is smaller than the vertical force, and the spring constant of the hinges in the y direction is four times larger than that in the torsional direction. The actuation force in the vertical direction z direction is proportional to the length of the fingers, while the force in the y direction is not affected by the length of the fingers. Therefore, the ratio of the driving force in the z direction to that in the y direction can be increased by extending the length of the fingers. 5.3.2 Factors controlling the actuation force are: Factors controlling the actuation force are: 1. the number of fingers 2. the length of the fingers 3. the gap between the two sets of the fingers 4. the amount of undercut of the fixed fingers, and 5. the distance between the substrate and the bottom edge of the suspended fingers. The number of fingers of the actuator is limited by the edge length of the mirror. The actuation force is also proportional to the length of the fingers that can be hundreds of microns long. To save die space, the current design has very limited finger length. The gap between the two sets of fingers is limited by the resolution of the photolithography, the plasma etch, and the conformality of metal sputtering. The minimum space between any two beams is about 1.5 m. The amount of undercut of the fixed fingers depends on the largest features that need to be isotropically etched and released. For the current design, the maximum undercut is about 1.5 m as shown in Fig. 6. There is also an attraction force between the substrate and the bottom of the movable fingers as shown in Fig. 5. 1. It is compatible with other SCREAM structures. 2. It is an extension of SCREAM that gives the process an access to the third dimension. 3. Due to planarization of the wafer, the lithography can be done rather easily with good resolution less than 1 m. Without planarization of the surface, to pattern the top of the wafer, a thick photoresist usually more than 10 m has to be utilized to pattern the wafer and the resolution is rather poor. 4. The capability of the process is not limited to making mirrors that are 300 240 m. It has been demonstrated that fully suspended structures with dimensions of 3 4 mm fabricated using SCREAM remained planar. 13 5. The process can be applied to fabricate large, planar, and rigid platforms that could move laterally and vertically in addition to torsional motion. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the National Science Foundation NSF for the support of the research. The microfabrication was performed at the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility CNF, which is supported by the NSF, Cornell University and Industrial Affiliates. The authors would like to thank Mr. Stephen Tang and the staff members of the CNF for their technical assistance. References 1. L. J. Hornbeck, Digital light processing and MEMS: timely convergence for a bright future, Proc. SPIE 2783, 2 13 1996. 2. R. M. Boysel, T. G. MacDonald, G. A. Magel, G. C. Smith, and J. L. Leonard, Integration of deformable mirror devices with optical fibers and waveguides, Proc. SPIE 1793, 34 39 1992. 3. H. Toshiyoshi and H. Fujita, An electrostatically operated torsion mirror for optical switching devices, Proc. Transducers 95, pp. 297 300 1995. 4. M. Ikeda, H. Goto, M. Sakata, K. I. Wakabayashi, M. Takeuchi, and T. Yada, Two dimensional silicon micromachined optical scanner integrated with photo detector, Proc. SPIE 2328, 118 123 1995. 5. F. Merat and M. Mehregany, Integrated micro-opto-mechanical systems, Proc. SPIE 2328, 88 98 1995. 6. R. A. Miller, G. W. Burr, Y. Tai, and D. Psaltis, Electromagnetic MEMS scanning mirrors for holographic data storage, Proc. Solid- State Sensor and Actuator Workshop, pp. 183 186 1996. 7. K. A. Honer, N. I. Haluf, E. Martinez, and G. T. A. Kovacs, A high-resolution laser-based deflection measurement system for characterizing aluminum electrostatic actuators, Proc. Transducers 95, pp. 308 311 1995. 8. O. Solgaard, N. C. Tien, M. Daneman, M. Kiang, A. Friedberger, S. Muller, and K. Lau, Precision and performance of polysilicon micromirrors for hybrid integrated optics, Proc. SPIE 2328, 99 105 1995. 9. P. Hsiang, N. Garcia-Valenzula, and M. 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chined 50 m 250 m silicon torsional mirror arrays for optical signal processing, Proc. SPIE 1793, 190 197 1992. 10. Z. L. Zhang and N. C. MacDonald, An RIE process for submicron, silicon electromechanical structures, J. Micromech. Microeng. 2, 31 38 1992. 11. K. A. Shaw, Z. L. Zhang, and N. C. MacDonald, SCREAM I: A single mask, single-crystal silicon, reactive ion etching process for microelectromechanical structures, Sensors and Actuators A 40, 63 70 1994. 12. S. A. Miller, Y. Xu, and N. C. MacDonald, Micromechanical cantilevers and scanning probe microscopes, Proc. SPIE 2640, 45 52 1995. 13. M. T. A. Saif and N. C. MacDonald, A milli-newton micro loading device, Transducers 95-The 8th Int. Conf. on Solid-State Sensors and Actuators 2, 60 63 1995. Zhimin J. Yao received her PhD from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology in 1995. She then worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the School of Electrical Engineering, Cornell University for one year. Her research emphasis was on silicon bulk micromachining. She is currently working at Texas Instruments, Photonics and Micromachining Group. Her research interests include simulation, fabrication, and characterization of micro-electro-mechanical systems. Noel C. MacDonald received the PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1967. He was an Acting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1967 to 1968. He was a member of the Technical Staff at the Rockwell International Science Center and held management positions in Physical Electronics Industries, Inc. (including Division General Manager) and Perkin-Elmer Corporation from 1968 to 1980. He received the 1973 Victor Macres Memorial Award and the 1975 Young Engineer of the Year Award. Currently, he is a professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and the Director of the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. His present interests include MEMS with emphasis on microinstruments and massively parallel nm-scale information storage lithography and molecular-scale manipulations. Optical Engineering, Vol. 36 No. 5, May 1997 1413