SILICON, A BASIC MATERIAL FOR MICROTECHNO LOGIES

Silicon is considered as a basic material for development of microsens ors and microtechnologies. This is because of its remarkable electrica l and mechanical properties. Silicon films with amorphous or polycryst alline texture as well as monocrystalline layers are now available and are well suited or applications. On the other hand, silicon can be us ed as a low cost substrate to growth heterogeneous systems, including for example SiGe/Si-III-V or II-VI compounds or organic materials on s ilicon. Different studies in material science must be emphasized for d eveloping microsensors and microsystems. Particularly, because of the size reduction of the components in integrated systems, minimization o f defects and strain at the interfaces is required.