Stress and resistivity analysis of electrodeposited gold films for MEMS application

Electroplated gold films have attracted much attention in recent years because of its desirable properties for microsystems applications such as resistance to oxidation, low electrical resistance, overall chemical inertness and low processing temperature. In order to use gold in microelectromechanical systems designs, systematic tests has to be conducted to characterize the material in terms of its electrical as well as mechanical properties. In this paper, the stress and resistivity behavior of a nanometer-scale gold film with respect to the deposition parameters and annealing condition is reported.