Characterizing size-dependent effective elastic modulus of silicon nanocantilevers using electrostatic pull-in instability

This letter presents the application of electrostatic pull-in instability to study the size-dependent effective Young’s Modulus ? ( ~170–70?GPa) of [110] silicon nanocantilevers (thickness ~1019–40?nm). The presented approach shows substantial advantages over the previous methods used for characterization of nanoelectromechanical systems...