Measurement of SiNx thin film thermal property with suspended membrane structure
Song Q., Cui Z., Xia S., Chen Z., Zhang J.
The thermal properties of thin films are known to be different from their bulk forms. Many attempts have been made to measure these properties. Most of these efforts have been focused on measurement of thermal conductivity of thin films, which is relatively easy because only the measurement at steady-state heating is required. In this paper, the transient state of thin film thermal property, i.e. the specific heat, has been investigated. A suspended silicon nitride membrane structure has been designed and fabricated by silicon micromachining. Thermal conductance and time constant for different thickness of silicon nitride thin film have been measured. Specific heat for the silicon nitride thin film has been derived from the experiment and compared with previous results. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.