Measurement and Modeling of Heat Conduction in MEMS Nanostructures

Heat transfer phenomena in nanostructures are supposed not to obey the classic Fourier heat transfer theory. Therefore, in order to verify this hypothesis nanostructures containing 100 nm-thin cavities filled with air or silicon dioxide were designed and manufactured. These structures include thin film platinum resistors located directly over and under the cavities. The resistors might serve either as heat sources or temperature sensors. This paper discusses in detail the experimental results of their thermal characterization and preliminary temperature measurements which are used to validate their thermal models. These experiments showed that it is possible to attain in the structures reasonable temperature gradients and temperature sensitivity allowing accurate temperature measurements with high temporal resolution.