Laser bending of etched silicon microstructures

The process of contactless laser bending using the laser induced thermal st resses that up to this moment is performed with steels and other metal allo ys is firstly applied to silicon microstructural elements. One-side-fastene d Si beams prepared by anisotropic wet etching were locally heated by a Nd: YAG laser. The beams were bent without additional tools towards the inciden t laser beam. Bending angles up to 90 degrees are realizable. The degree of bending is strongly dependent on the used laser parameters, the position o f heating and the number and distance of the laser scans.