Skate, overtravel, and contact force of tilted triangular cantilevers for microcantilever-based MEMS probe technologies

Microfabricated chip-edge microcantilevers are commonly used as surface probes, e.g. in near-field microscopy. Such probes normally function in the low-deflection regime, where their behaviour is very well understood and documented. In contrast, when microcantilevers are used for applications such as electrical testing probes, their deflection can be somewhat higher, taking them into the less well understood high-deflection regime of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Here, a scalable model for the relationship between the skate, overtravel, and resulting tip contact force in tilted triangular cantilevers—which are bending with high deflection and in contact with a flat surface—is presented. The model is tested experimentally using macroscopic triangular cantilevers—the experimental results agree well with the proposed model. The findings enable a practical solution for zero-skate in tapered MEMS probes to be suggested. It is hoped that the findings may be of use for probe engineers involved with on-wafer testing and designers of emerging MEMS micro cantilever-based probes.