Integrated circuits have already entered the world of nanoelectronics. According to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, the industry will be extending CMOS technology through new materials and device structures for at least the next fifteen years. During that time, the gate length of nanotransistors will shrink to less than 10 nm. The electrical properties of nano-transistors will move into regime of short channel devices where new physics will result in changes in transistor operation. The number of transistors in a single IC is already approaching a number that results 2 billion functions per IC by 2010. Nano-sized features and high density will challenge metrology and characterization and most certainly move measurement further into the world of nanotechnology. Beyond CMOS, new nano-technology based devices are being considered as a means of continuing the rapid pace of technological innovation in electronics.

With the development and application of micro/nano electronic mechanical systems (MEMS, NEMS) for a variety of market segments new reliability issues will arise. The understanding of material interfaces is the key for a successful design for reliability of MEMS/NEMS and sensor systems. Furthermore in the field of BIOMEMS newly developed advanced materials and well known engineering materials are combined despite of fully developed reliability concepts for such devices and components. In addition the increasing interface-to volume ratio in highly integrated systems and nanoparticle filled materials are challenges for experimental reliability evaluation. New strategies for reliability assessment on the submicron scale are essential to fulfil the needs of future devices. In this paper a nanoscale resolution experimental method for the measurement of thermo-mechanical deformation at material interfaces is introduced. The determination of displacement fields is based on scanning probe microscopy (SPM) data. In-situ SPM scans of the analyzed object (i.e. material interface) are carried out at different thermo-mechanical load states. The obtained images are compared by grayscale cross correlation algorithms. This allows the tracking of local image patterns of the analyzed surface structure. The measurement results are full-field displacement fields with nanometer resolution. With the obtained data the mixed mode type of loading at material interfaces can be analyzed with highest resolution for future needs in micro system and nanotechnology.

The paper comprises research results obtained for stress determination on micro and nanotechnology components. It meets the concern of controlling stresses introduced to sensors, MEMS and electronics devices during different micromachining processes. The method bases on deformation measurement options made available inside focused ion beam equipment. Removing locally material by ion beam milling existing stresses / residual stresses lead to deformation fields around the milled feature. Digital image correlation techniques are used to extract deformation values from micrographs captured before and after milling. In the paper, two main milling features have been analyzed - through hole and through slit milling. Analytical solutions for stress release fields of in-plane stresses have been derived and compared to respective experimental findings. Their good agreement allows to settle a method for determination of residual stress values, which is demonstrated for thin membranes manufactured by silicon micro technology. Some emphasis is made on the elimination of main error sources for stress determination, like rigid body object displacements and rotations due to drifts of experimental conditions under FIB imaging. In order to illustrate potential application areas of the method residual stress suppression by ion implantation is evaluated by the method and reported here.

Monitoring the incipient damage at the earliest possible stage is essential for predicting structural performance and remaining life of structural components. Existing prognostic methodologies incorporate conventional SHM and NDE techniques responsive to cracks and delaminations resulted from the irreversible material fracture and disintegration at the macro-scale. There is an increasing need for technologies that could allow for monitoring material degradation at the micro/meso scale before the onset of the macro-scale fracture. In this contribution, we report results of the real-time monitoring of the material micro/meso scale degradation using the nonlinear acoustic vibro-modulation technique. The technique explores nonlinear acoustic interaction of high frequency ultrasound and low frequency structural vibration at the site of the incipient damage. The indicator of the damage severity, nonlinear acoustic damage index (DI), was measured in real time during the strain-controlled three-point bending fatigue test of aluminum and steel specimens. Nondestructively, degradation of the specimen was revealed through the increase in the DI, which correlated well with the respective decrease in the specimen's stiffness. Destructive SEM examination confirmed sensitivity of the DI to the incipient micro/meso scale damage and advocated for utilizing the vibro-modulation approach for assessment of material degradation before fracture.

Advanced Scanning Probe Microscopy techniques combine Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) with ultrasound. Atomic Force Acoustic Microscopy (AFAM) and Ultrasonic Force Microscopy (UFM) become increasingly powerful tools for the determination of material properties on nanoscale. AFAM is mainly applied to the analysis of materials with elastic properties locally varying on micro- and nanoscale. Deformation fields and buried structures can be visualized. In AFAM, flexural and torsional cantilever vibrations are excited by out-of-plane and in-plane sample surface vibrations. The ultrasound is transmitted from the sample into the cantilever while forces act between sensor tip and sample. The sample surface is scanned by the sensor, and an ultrasonic image is acquired simultaneously to the topography image. The contrast comprehended in the ultrasonic image depends on surface topography and on the local elastic and adhesive properties of the sample. Voids, inclusions, or cracks, which build up regions of different elastic constants in the interior of the material, are sensed by the local elastic response of the tip. As a consequence, information on hidden structures can be derived from the acoustic images. Usually, this subsurface information is overlaid by additional topographic information, also contained in the ultrasonic image. Here, an AFAM set up is combined with tensile and bending modules. This approach allows generation of static deformation fields on surfaces and in-situ imaging and analysis of these fields in the AFM or AFAM. A software module for micro deformation analysis by means of correlation based algorithms (MicroDAC) is used to determine the local surface deformation quantitatively.

We studied nanoparticles by several high resolution microscopic methods as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning probe techniques especially atomic force microscopy (AFM) in contact and non-contact mode. While AFM in non-contact mode gives reliable information for 100 nm range nanoparticles it fails for smaller particles, showing lack of reproducibility. TEM and SEM prove to be reliable. By SEM imaging the agglomeration behavior and the structure of agglomerates are discussed in detail.

We have formed nanoparticles of Si, C, Ti, and Fe by pulsed laser ablation and have explored the feasibility of passivating these particles during the synthesis process in order to minimize particle coarsening. Passivation was done by forming the nanoparticles in an Ar/N₂ background, which allowed the formation of a thin nitride layer on the nanoparticle surface. In this paper we describe the synthesis procedure for synthesizing and passivating the nanoparticles. The characterization results indicate the nanoparticle synthesis in N₂ does not significantly affect agglomeration.

The resistance to chloride penetration of concrete containing nano-particles (TiO₂ and SiO₂) for pavement is experimentally investigated and compared with that of plain concrete, the concrete containing polypropylene (PP) fibers and the concrete containing both nano-particles and PP fibers. The test results indicate that the addition of nano-particles (TiO₂ and SiO₂) improves the resistance to chloride penetration of concrete. The effectiveness of nano-TiO₂ in improving the resistance to chloride penetration reduces with increasing content of nano-TiO₂, and the similar results can be found for the concrete containing nano-SiO₂. The resistance to chloride penetration of concrete containing nano-TiO₂ is better than that containing the same amount of nano-SiO₂. However, the resistance to chloride penetration of concrete containing PP fibers is decreased. The larger the content of PP fibers is, the lower the resistance to chloride penetration of concrete is. For the concrete containing both nano-particles and PP fibers, the resistance to chloride penetration is also reduced and even lower than the concrete only containing the same amount of PP fibers. The relationship between the chloride diffusion coefficient and compressive strength of concrete approaches hyperbola basically, which shows that the resistance to chloride penetration of concrete enhances with increasing compressive strength and proves that compressive strength is an important factor influencing the resistance to chloride penetration of concrete.

In this research a generalized software framework that enables accurate computer aided design of MEMS devices is developed. The proposed simulation engine utilizes a novel material property estimation technique that generates effective material properties at the microscopic level. The material property models were developed based on empirical analysis and the behavior extraction of standard test structures. A literature review is provided on the physical phenomena that govern the mechanical behavior of thin films materials. This survey indicates that the present day models operate under a wide range of assumptions that may not be applicable to the micro-world. Thus, this methodology is foreseen to be an essential tool for MEMS designers as it would develop empirical models that relate the loading parameters, material properties, and the geometry of the microstructures with its performance characteristics. This process involves learning the relationship between the above parameters using non-parametric learning algorithms such as radial basis function networks and genetic algorithms. The proposed simulation engine has a graphical user interface (GUI) which is very adaptable, flexible, and transparent. The GUI is able to encompass all parameters associated with the determination of the desired material property so as to create models that provide an accurate estimation of the desired property. This technique was verified by fabricating and simulating bilayer cantilevers consisting of aluminum and glass (TEOS oxide) in our previous work. The results obtained were found to be very encouraging.