Hello Heiko,

I think I may be able to help you find the information you are looking for.
There are a number of ways to measure elastic properties, and for good overviews
I would direct you to the below texts by Kovacs and Madou. However, one of the
simplest ways of performing this kind of metrology was introduced by Osterberg
and Senturia in 1997, and is not included in those overviews. You can find their
work in the following paper:

Osterberg, Peter M. and Senturia, Stephen D.
"M-Test: A Test Chip for MEMS Material Property Measurement Using
Electrostatically Actuated Test Structures"
Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, Vol. 6, No. 2, June, 1997

JMEMS is on-line these days (a great convenience!), and you can find the above
paper at the following web address:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/lpdocs/epic03/EarlierIssue.HTM?punumber=84&isyr=1997

Best of luck in your research!

-Craig McGray
 Dartmouth College


REFERENCES:

Kovacs, Gregory, T.A.
"Micromachined Transducers Sourcebook"
McGraw-Hill, 1998

Madou, Marc
"Fundamentals of Microfabrication"
CRC Press, 1997


[email protected] wrote:

> From: "Heiko van der Linden" 
> To: 
> Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 13:00:59 +0200
> Subject: [mems-talk] measurement of the elastic properties of polymeric
microactuators
>
> I work on the development of elastic polymer actuators called hydrogels. I can
make these actuators on silicon wafers by photopatterning. At the moment I would
really like to know what the elastic properties are of my polymers but I don=92t
know a method to measure on such small things.
>
> Has anybody ever done such type of measurements or know a method to do this ?
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Heiko van der Linden