A Force Domain Analog-to-Digital Converter Applied to Microscale Tensile Test

Mechanical characterization of sub-micron thin films or similar small scale structures have been a continuous challenge to the mechanics community due to the difficulty in accurately quantizing the applied load and the resulted deformation. In this paper, a new force-domain analog-to-digital converter (F-D ADC) created from the concept of Flash ADC in electronics is developed to perform thin film tensile tests. The key component of the F-D ADC is a quantizer-array of microfabricated buckling beams of varying lengths. During testing, the tensile force applied in the test specimen is converted to the compressive force in the quantizer beam array and digitized by using the critical buckling load of the beams as they progressively buckle with increasing force amplitude. The deformation of the specimen is controlled by the piezoelectric actuator. Successful testing of (110) single crystal silicon and titanium/nickel (Ti/Ni) multilayer thin film specimens demonstrated the feasibility of this novel F-D ADC concept.