Polarimetric analysis of stress anisotropy in nanomechanical silicon nitride resonators

We realise a circular gray-field polariscope to image stress-induced birefringence in thin (submicron thick) silicon nitride membranes and strings. This enables quantitative mapping of the orientation of principal stresses and stress anisotropy, complementary to, and in agreement with, finite element modeling. Furthermore, using a sample with a well-known stress anisotropy, we extract a value for the photoelastic (Brewster) coefficient of silicon nitride, C approximate to (3.4 +/- 0.1) x 10(-6) MPa-1. We explore possible applications of the method to analyse and quality-control stressed membranes with phononic crystal patterns.