Elastic buckling of AlN ribbons on elastomeric substrate

For optoelectronic applications requiring unconventional substrates, use of flexible forms of semiconductors may be inevitable. We have fabricated a flexible form of single crystalline AlN ribbons with periodic and wavelike structures on an elastomeric substrate. Single crystalline AlN films were grown on Si (111) substrate using high vacuum unbalanced magnetron sputtering. Crystallinity of the AlN films was confirmed with x-ray diffraction and pole figure. The AlN ribbons were transferred to a prestrained (3.1%) elastomeric substrate and the resulting wavy ribbons on the substrate were flexible up to 30% strain without any crack formation on the surface. As the film thickness changed from 300 to 900 nm, the periods of the waves varied from 95 to 277 mu m, which were within a 10% error of the calculated values. When we applied more than 30% strain, mechanical instability, such as the failure of AlN ribbons due to the cracks on the surface and the merged ribbons, was observed.