Mechanical properties of polymer thin film measured by the bulge test

Abstract The bulge test was used to measure the mechanical properties of polymer thin films with thickness in the range of 77 nm to 352 nm. The mechanical properties of polymeric thin films were extracted by comparing differences between curves of load vs. bulge height obtained from composite film configurations with and without the polymer layer. Both square and long rectangular windows were used to obtain the Poisson ratio and Young's Modulus. Composite film with 230 nm silicon nitride layer and 30 nm Al layer has a composite Poisson ratio of 0.29 and a Young's Modulus of 234 ± 0.8 GPa. The Poisson ratio extracted for a 352 nm Poly(methyl methacrylate)-based thermoplastic polymeric thin film was 0.39. The Young's Modulus extracted for the 77 nm thick polymeric film is 4.9 ± 0.8 GPa and for the 352 nm thick film is 5.8 ± 0.2 GPa. In the thickness range investigated, no clear thickness dependence of the Young's modulus was observed using the Bulge test.