Real-time measurements of stress evolution during the deposition of VolmerWeber thin films reveal a complex interplay between mechanisms for stress generation and stress relaxation. We observed a generic stress evolution from compressive to tensile, then back to compressive stress as the film thickened, in amorphous and polycrystalline Ge and Si, as well as in polycrystall;ne Ag, Al, and Ti. Direct measurements of stress relaxation during growth interrupts demonstrate that the generic behavior can occur even in the absence of stress relaxation. When relaxation did occur, the mechanism depended sensitively on whether the film was continuous or discontinuous, on the process conditions, and on the fildsubstrate interracial strength.For Ag films, interracial shear dominated the early relaxation behnavior, whereas this mechanism was negligible in Al films due to the much stronger bonding at the A1/SiOz interface. For amorphous Ge, selective relaxation of tensile stress was observed only at elevated temperatures, consistent with surface-diffusion-based mechanisms. In "all the films studied here, stress relaxation was suppressed after the films became continuous...

A simple model is presented that predicts the kinetics of tensile stress evolution during the deposition of thin films that grow by the Volmer–Weber mechanism. The generation of a tensile stress was attributed to the impingement and coalescence of growing islands, while concurrent stress relaxation was assumed to occur via a microstructure-dependent diffusive mechanism. To model the process of island coalescence, finite element methods were employed and yielded average tensile stresses more consistent with experimental observations than those predicted using previously reported analytical models. A computer simulation was developed that models the process of film growth as the continuous nucleation of isolated islands, which grow at a constant rate to impinge and coalesce to form a continuous polycrystalline film. By incorporating the finite element results for stress generation and a microstructure-dependent stress relaxation model, the simulation qualitatively reproduced the complex temperature-dependent trends observed from in situ measurements of stress evolution during the deposition of Ag thin films. The agreement includes simulation of the decreasing stress relaxation rate observed during deposition at increasing temperatures.

Stresses caused by Volmer–Weber growth of polycrystalline Cu films have been measured in situ during: Island nucleation and growth, island coalescence, and post-coalescence film thickening. Growth interruptions followed by resumption of growth resulted in the observation of reversible stress changes in all regimes. Reversible stress changes in the pre-coalescence and post-coalescence regimes are similar in that: The stress evolves in the tensile direction during growth interruptions, the initial rate of stress evolution is significantly faster when growth is resumed than when growth is first interrupted, and the magnitude of the reversible stress change increases with increasing pre-interruption deposition rate. It is argued that reversible stress changes are associated with changes in adatom and other surface defect concentrations, corresponding with changes in the growth flux. It is shown that the change in stress-thickness product with changing film thickness (the instantaneous stress) can be related to the adatom–surface interaction energy. High sensitivity stress measurements were made at a rate of 1000 measurements per second, and the instantaneous stress at the initiation of growth was measured at all stages of growth. The initial instantaneous stress and the adatom–surface interaction energy increased in the pre-coalescence regime and reached a fixed, maximum value once coalescence had occurred. The measured interaction energy in the post-coalescence regime is 0.67±0.1 eV, which corresponds well with values calculated using molecular dynamics.

As motivation builds to consider mechanics of nanometer scale objects, it is increasingly advantageous to implement models with finer resolution than standard continuum approaches. For such exercises to prove fruitful, these models must be able to quantify continuum thermomechanical quantities; furthermore, it may be necessary to do so on a sub-system level in order to assess gradients or distributions in a given property. Herein we review the calculation of stress, heat flux, and temperature in atomic scale numerical simulations such as the molecular dynamics method.

Experimental results are presented for stress evolution, in vacuum and electrolyte, for the first monolayer of Cu on Au(111). In electrolyte the monolayer is pseudomorphic and the stress-thickness change is -0.60 N/m, while conventional epitaxy theory predicts a value of +7.76 N/m. In vacuum, the monolayer is incoherent with the underlying gold. Using a combination of first-principles based calculations and molecular dynamic simulations we analyzed these results and demonstrate that in electrolyte, overlayer coherency is maintained owing to anion adsorption.