Abstract: Mechanical stability and sticking are the troublesome problems in the microfabrication process and operating when components in MEMS working in the sub-micrometer regime, where some quantum mechanical effects, hitherto neglected, will need to be taken into account, for example, the Casimir effect. The analysis of the role of the Casimir effect on a membrane strip structure considering roughness, conductivity and temperature corrections is presented. With nothing other than the Casimir force loading the strip, there exist a stable static equilibrium state and an unstable static equilibrium state. The state can be determined by the value of dimensionless constant K. The membrane strip will collapse if A" is larger than the critical value of K{. Thisjprovides a way to check if a system of given dimensions and material properties will have a stable equilibrium position. This also provides a way to design a membrane strip with high aspect ratio (Ll§) that is not easily to collapse into the surface.

Key words: Casimir force MEMS Polysilicon Stability Sticking