Avoidance of stiction in the release of highly boron doped micro-actuatorsfabricated using BESOI substrates

This paper presents a new technique which has been successfully applied to the fabrication of micromachined components to avoid the 'device stiction' often encountered during the final processing steps of micro-fabrication. B ased on the use of BESOI substrates, this technique involves the heavy boro n doping of the final processed structure, followed by a timed wet etch whi ch releases the micromachined device by controllably lowering the undoped S i substrate beneath it. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.