Thermal analysis of micro cantilevers integrated with heaters for low power nano-data-storage application

In this paper, a silicon micro cantilever integrated with heater was fabricated to optimize thermal time constant for reduce writing power. The thermal time constant of micro cantilever integrated with heater can be minimized by reducing the heater area. The thermal time constant was measured experimentally and then this measured value was compared with simulated value using finite element analysis tool, ALGOR. To measure the thermal time constant, a resistively heated silicon cantilever was fabricated. It was found that the thermal time constant of silicon cantilever with heater area of 49 μm2 was measured to be approximately 400 μs. This value was compared with finite element analysis value. To reduce thermal time constant, heater area was reduced to 36 μm2 and the thermal time constant was reduced to 145 μs. This value also matched with the simulated value. More simulation is needed to obtain an optimized heater design for the thermal time constant of silicon cantilever to be on the order of 10 μs. Therefore, finite element tool, ALGOR was successfully used to find an optimized design for micro cantilevers to reduce writing power.