Fracture toughness of silicon nitride thin films of different thicknesses as measured by bulge tests

A bulge test setup was used to determine the fracture toughness of amorphous low-pressure chemical vapor deposited (LPCVD) silicon nitride films with various thicknesses in the range 40-108 nm. A crack-like slit was milled in the center of each free-standing film with a focused ion beam, and the membrane was deformed in the bulge test until failure occurred. The fracture toughness K(IC) was calculated from the pre-crack length and the stress at failure. It is shown that the membrane is in a transition state between pure plane-stress and plane-strain which, however, had a negligible influence on the measurement of the fracture toughness, because of the high brittleness of silicon nitride and its low Young's modulus over yield strength ratio. The fracture toughness K(IC) was found to be constant at 6.3 +/- 0.4 MPa m(1/2) over the whole thickness range studied, which compares well with bulk values. This means that the fracture toughness, like the Young's modulus, is a size-independent quantity for LPCVD silicon nitride. This presumably holds true for all amorphous brittle ceramic materials. (C) 2010 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.