Fatigue Behavior of Electrodeposited Nanocrystalline Nickel Films

Abstract

Material characterization of thin film for MEMS/nano structures is a building block for the reliability assessment. One of the most significant barriers for reliable MEMS/nano structure is the long term reliability which is different from those of bulk materials. Nano-indenter has been used widely to get the elastic modulus of materials in a very simple way but other testing machines are required for tensile and endurance properties. For the long term reliability assessment of micro/nano structures, a new micro fatigue testing machine was developed to obtain the high cycles fatigue behavior of thin films. Nanocrystalline nickel thin films exhibited significant rate dependency on tensile and fatigue behavior even in room temperature due to grain size related behavior in contrast to coarse grained wrought nickels.