12:00 〜 12:15
▲ [15a-B10-13] High Mechanical Strength in Gold Films Electroplated with Supercritical Carbon Dioxide for MEMS Applications
キーワード:Gold, Electroplating, Supercritical carbon dioxide
Recently, electroplated gold films have attracted much attention because of their desirable properties for micro-electrical-mechanical systems (MEMS) devices. However, it is known that mechanical strength of gold materials is relatively low when compared with the other metallic materials, which is always a concern in practical MEMS applications especially for the movable components. On the other hand, an alternative electroplating (EP) method employing supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) in film deposition was proposed to be effective on the grain refinement as demonstrated in electroplating of Ni and Cu. Based on the Hall-Petch relationship, finer grain would result in strengthening of the metallic materials. It is expected that the mechanical strength of electroplated gold could be enhanced by employing scCO2 in the EP process.