Stress and structure evolution during Volmer-Weber growth of thin films

To investigate stress evolution during film deposition, a novel electrical technique for in situ thin film stress measurements was developed utilizing piezoresistive silicon microcantilevers, or piezocantilevers. In addition to the thin film stress measurements of Cu made with the piezocantilevers, our collaborators at Sandia National Laboratories have studied thin film growth stresses for Al, Ag, and amorphous Ge (a-Ge) films measured using conventional laser deflectometery. A computer simulation of thin film formation by the Volmer-Weber mechanism was developed to model the nucleation and growth of individual islands that impinge and coalesce to form a continuous film. By including a size-dependent lattice contraction in pre-coalescence islands, the simulation can be used to qualitatively reproduce the measured compressive stress behavior of Al at low film thicknesses. In contrast to Al films that support stress from the very onset of deposition, Ag films exhibit no measurable stress until larger film thickness are achieved. This difference in behavior was attributed to shear occurring at the Ag-SiO2 interface, which is suppressed at the much stronger Al-SiO2 interface. Tensile stress generation resulting from island coalescence was modeled analytically and by finite element methods (FEM) as the energetic balance between interfacial energy reduction and strain energy generation resulting from grain boundary formation. The magnitude of the island-coalescence stress calculated using FEM was found to decrease dramatically with decreasing island-substrate contact angle.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Seel, Steven Craig, 1972-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Carl V. Thompson.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29912

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/29912