Quantitative correlation between intrinsic stress and microstructure of thin films

Depla, Diederik; Braeckman, Bert

doi:10.1016/j.tsf.2016.03.039

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…As shown by Mahieu et al [32] , structure zone models can be linked to the diffusion length of atoms. A similar link was made by Depla and Braeckman [29] who correlated the characteristic length [38] with the thin film intrinsic stress. Both lengths are calculated from the ratio between the surface diffusion rate, and the deposition flux.…”

Section: Influence Of the Homologous Temperaturesupporting

confidence: 62%

“…The latter can for example be estimated on the tensile to compressive transition during stress measurements. Based on the database reported by Depla and Braeckman [29] , the transition to a continuous film occurs at an average film thickness of 15.7 nm ( ± 5.9 nm) for metals deposited by thermal evaporation on weakly interacting substrates.…”

Section: Correlation Between a And Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 was observed during post-annealing of iron nanocrystals [37] . Depla and Braeckman [29] report on a threshold of T s /T m = 0 . 28 above which grain growth influences the stress evolution of thin films.…”

Section: Influence Of the Homologous Temperaturementioning

confidence: 99%

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On the grain size-thickness correlation for thin films

et al. 2021

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Section: Influence Of the Homologous Temperaturesupporting

confidence: 62%

Section: Correlation Between a And Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the grain size-thickness correlation for thin films

et al. 2021

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“…This assumption implies that coalescence in regime I is excluded. The idea of a nucleation-dominated regime without coalescence is based on the good agreement between the calculated characteristic lengths, i.e., in the range of 8-22 nm for all investigated materials, by the coalescence-free formalism described in the work of Depla and Braeckman 46 and the observed domain sizes in the impurity-low regime I for all materials. The average domain sizes for the experiments in regime I are in the range of 5-19 nm.…”

mentioning

confidence: 85%

Impurity dominated thin film growth

Cougnon

Dulmaa

Dedoncker

et al. 2018

Applied Physics Letters

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Magnetron sputter deposition was applied to grow thin metal films in the presence of impurities. These impurities are ambient gas molecules and/or atoms from the residual gas present in the vacuum chamber. Seven materials were investigated: four single element metals (Al, Ag, Cu, and Cr), two widely applied alloys (Cu 55 Ni 45 and Ni 90 Cr 10), and one high entropy alloy (CoCrCuFeNi). The thin films were analyzed using X-ray diffraction to determine the domain size, the film texture, and the lattice parameter. The same trend for all studied materials is observed. When the ratio between the impurity and metal flux towards the substrate is low, the domain size is not affected by the presence of the impurities. In this regime, the incorporation of the impurities affects the lattice parameter. At high flux ratios, the change of the domain size can be described by a power law with the exponent equal to À1/2 for all studied materials. A kinetic Monte Carlo code is used to demonstrate this observed trend.

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“…An additional effect of the weak film/substate interaction in the latter systems is that the deposited layers grow in a pronounced three-dimensional (3D) fashion, which offers an ideal test bed for identifying subtle changes of film morphology as a function of deposition conditions and material characteristics using optical and electrical probes [ 1 , 61 , 62 ]. As such, kinetics is studied both in terms of intrinsic atomic mobility of the thin-film materials—as approximated by their melting point

, which yields homologous temperatures

of 0.24 (Ag), 0.22 (Cu), 0.16 (Pd and Fe), 0.1 (Mo) and 0.09 (Ta), at

= 300 K, where

is the substrate temperature [ 21 , 63 , 64 , 65 ]—and extrinsic deposition parameters, including deposition temperature and rate. In a second group, the importance of interface reactivity on film structure formation is addressed by discussing the growth of bcc transition metals (Fe, Mo and Ta) on amorphous Si (a-Si).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In Situ and Real-Time Nanoscale Monitoring of Ultra-Thin Metal Film Growth Using Optical and Electrical Diagnostic Tools

et al. 2020

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Continued downscaling of functional layers for key enabling devices has prompted the development of characterization tools to probe and dynamically control thin film formation stages and ensure the desired film morphology and functionalities in terms of, e.g., layer surface smoothness or electrical properties. In this work, we review the combined use of in situ and real-time optical (wafer curvature, spectroscopic ellipsometry) and electrical probes for gaining insights into the early growth stages of magnetron-sputter-deposited films. Data are reported for a large variety of metals characterized by different atomic mobilities and interface reactivities. For fcc noble-metal films (Ag, Cu, Pd) exhibiting a pronounced three-dimensional growth on weakly-interacting substrates (SiO2, amorphous carbon (a-C)), wafer curvature, spectroscopic ellipsometry, and resistivity techniques are shown to be complementary in studying the morphological evolution of discontinuous layers, and determining the percolation threshold and the onset of continuous film formation. The influence of growth kinetics (in terms of intrinsic atomic mobility, substrate temperature, deposition rate, deposition flux temporal profile) and the effect of deposited energy (through changes in working pressure or bias voltage) on the various morphological transition thicknesses is critically examined. For bcc transition metals, like Fe and Mo deposited on a-Si, in situ and real-time growth monitoring data exhibit transient features at a critical layer thickness of ~2 nm, which is a fingerprint of an interface-mediated crystalline-to-amorphous phase transition, while such behavior is not observed for Ta films that crystallize into their metastable tetragonal β-Ta allotropic phase. The potential of optical and electrical diagnostic tools is also explored to reveal complex interfacial reactions and their effect on growth of Pd films on a-Si or a-Ge interlayers. For all case studies presented in the article, in situ data are complemented with and benchmarked against ex situ structural and morphological analyses.

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Quantitative correlation between intrinsic stress and microstructure of thin films

Cited by 17 publications

References 37 publications

On the grain size-thickness correlation for thin films

On the grain size-thickness correlation for thin films

Impurity dominated thin film growth

In Situ and Real-Time Nanoscale Monitoring of Ultra-Thin Metal Film Growth Using Optical and Electrical Diagnostic Tools

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