An application of Raman spectroscopy on the measurement of residual stress in porous silicon

The porous silicon film, at micron level, and the bulk silicon substrate is a basic structure in MEMS components. The residual stress, due to the lattice mismatch between the film and the substrate, exists on the interface and may cause cracking and damaging on the component. Micro-Raman spectroscopy is an optical measurement method that was rapidly applied into the fields of chemistry, physics, material science and mechanics. In this paper, the method is introduced and applied to the study of the stress problems in porous silicon as follows. (1) In the electrochemical etching technique for porous silicon preparation, the distribution of the tensile residual stress along the transitional region between etched and un-etched area is experimentally studied and the result reveals the stress is continuous across the region. In the etched region it reaches GPa level, and in the transition region the gradient of the stress is high. (2) In chemical etching preparation of porous silicon, the residual stress rises up seriously in the cracked area, up to 0.92 GPa. With the porosity increasing, the tensile stress on the porous silicon film increases accordingly. The appearance of the porous silicon film surface is also given by metalloscope and atomic force microscope. The structure of the micro-pores is expected to have a close relation with the distribution of the residual stress.