Deflection of perforated silicon nitride membrane
In order to verify our measurement technique for the determination of Young’s modulus of pnc-Si, I decided to look at a PECVD silicon nitride membrane SiMPore is using for cell culture applications. The membrane window is 1 mm x 1 mm with 3 um holes.
The Young’s modulus of silicon nitride thin films has been well-characterized using a number of techniques and falls between 200 GPa and 300 GPa. Here is the 3-d deflection behavior. The objective I was using did not allow me to image the entire membrane area but I made sure that the max deflection point was visible.
Based on the deflection curve, I calculated a Young’s modulus of 173.45 GPa and a residual stress of 200.36. It would seem that the bulge test is getting us reasonable values.
