2. Collective micro-machining technology

2.1 General features

Structures exploiting the mechanical and elastic properties of materials are usually referred to as micromachined. They generally comprise at least one flexible element (beam, bridge or membrane) and are produced by deep chemical or physico-chemical etching (often in excess of 100 µm). The purpose of these etchings is to isolate elastic structures within a material of the same nature (usually silicon) or of a different nature (for example, creating a polysilicon beam by etching away an underlying oxide layer).