Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Micromechanical structures designed for material characterization through analysis of their nonlinear dynamic response are presented. The structures consist of a rigid movable mass supported by beams which are attached to the wafer substrate. The structures are designed so that they are geometrically constrained, which is the source of their nonlinearity. The nonlinearity is shown to be well modeled by Duffing's equation for a stiffening spring and it is this model which is used to fit the test data to the desired mechanical properties, namely Young's modulus, intrinsic stress and damping.