Diffusional Creep Phenomena in Polycrystalline Oxides

Author(s):  
Ronald S. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
2003 ◽  
Vol 779 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. John Balk ◽  
Gerhard Dehm ◽  
Eduard Arzt

AbstractWhen confronted by severe geometric constraints, dislocations may respond in unforeseen ways. One example of such unexpected behavior is parallel glide in unpassivated, ultrathin (200 nm and thinner) metal films. This involves the glide of dislocations parallel to and very near the film/substrate interface, following their emission from grain boundaries. In situ transmission electron microscopy reveals that this mechanism dominates the thermomechanical behavior of ultrathin, unpassivated copper films. However, according to Schmid's law, the biaxial film stress that evolves during thermal cycling does not generate a resolved shear stress parallel to the film/substrate interface and therefore should not drive such motion. Instead, it is proposed that the observed dislocations are generated as a result of atomic diffusion into the grain boundaries. This provides experimental support for the constrained diffusional creep model of Gao et al.[1], in which they described the diffusional exchange of atoms between the unpassivated film surface and grain boundaries at high temperatures, a process that can locally relax the film stress near those boundaries. In the grains where it is observed, parallel glide can account for the plastic strain generated within a film during thermal cycling. One feature of this mechanism at the nanoscale is that, as grain size decreases, eventually a single dislocation suffices to mediate plasticity in an entire grain during thermal cycling. Parallel glide is a new example of the interactions between dislocations and the surface/interface, which are likely to increase in importance during the persistent miniaturization of thin film geometries.


2007 ◽  
Vol 551-552 ◽  
pp. 203-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Neng Tang ◽  
Hong Yan ◽  
Rong Shi Chen ◽  
En Hou Han

Superplastic deformation (SPD) behaviors of two fine-grained materials produced by ECAE and hot rolling methods have been contrastively studied in this paper. It is found that the optimum superplastic condition in as-ECAEed material was at 350°C and 1.7×10-3s-1 with elongation to failure about 800%; while in as-rolled material, the largest elongation to failure about 1000% was obtained at 480°C and 5.02×10-4s-1. Microstructure observation showed that grain evolution and cavitation behavior were different in these two materials during superplastic deformation. The controlled mechanisms for superplasticity, i.e. grain boundary sliding (GBS), dislocation creep and diffusional creep, at different deformation conditions were discussed in terms of strain rate sensitivity coefficient, stress exponent and activity energy.


1990 ◽  
Vol 196 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Siegel

ABSTRACTThe ultrafine grain sizes and high diffusivities in nanophase materials assembled from atomic clusters suggest that these materials may have a strong tendency toward superplastic mechanical behavior. Both small grain size and enhanced diffusivity can be expected to lead to increased diffusional creep rates as well as to a significantly greater propensity for grain boundary sliding. Recent mechanical properties measurements at room temperature on nanophase Cu, Pd, and TiO2, however, give no indications of superplasticity. Nonetheless, significant ductility has been clearly demonstrated in these studies of both nanophase ceramics and metals. The synthesis of cluster-assembled nanophase materials is described and the salient features of what is known of their structure and mechanical properties is reviewed. Finally, the answer to the question posed in the title is addressed.


1995 ◽  
Vol 391 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.M. Klinger ◽  
L. Levin ◽  
E.E. Glickman

AbstractWe report on the role of surface diffusion involved in relaxation of electromigration (EM) induced compressive stresses in relation to hillock growth and EM behavior of interconnects. Two competing mechanisms of EM stress relaxation by material transport onto the surface are considered. The first is hillocking by threshold diffusional creep (TCH), with rather large blocks of material (grains or group of grains) involved in plastic flow. The second mechanism, atomic diffusion hillocking (ADH), is presumed to be a nonthreshold one, and represents atomic grain boundary (GB) diffusion stimulated by the hydrostatic stress gradient in the direction normal to the film surface. The latter process involves surface diffusion because GB diffusional flux onto the surface must be coupled with the flux of redistribution of the atoms over the surface. If ADH acts rapidly, this should prevent the build-up of the matter at the down-wind (anode) end of the stripe, and thus, eliminate the Blech EM threshold resulting from the stress-gradient along the stripe. The question as to whether GB diffusion capable of transporting atoms pushed by electron wind along the stripe is also effective in relieving compressive stress by GB migration of the surplus atoms in the normal direction, has remained open up to now. The problem is especially acute for short or/and narrow lines separated into short polycrystalline segments, where the Blech threshold effects are critical to EM reliability.We derived the main features of the EM behavior in drift velocity test geometry assuming that both TCH and ADH are operative. The result can be compared with available and future experimental observations in order to reveal if and when the ADH mechanism with surface diffusion involved works.


2003 ◽  
Vol 779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus J. Buehler ◽  
Alexander Hartmaier ◽  
Huajian Gao

AbstractMotivated by recent theoretical and experimental progress, large-scale atomistic simulations are performed to study plastic deformation in sub-micron thin films. The studies reveal that stresses are relaxed by material transport from the surface into the grain boundary. This leads to the formation of a novel defect identified as diffusion wedge. Eventually, a crack-like stress field develops because the tractions along the grain boundary relax, but the adhesion of the film to the substrate prohibits strain relaxation close to the interface. This causes nucleation of unexpected parallel glide dislocations at the grain boundary-substrate interface, for which no driving force exists in the overall biaxial stress field. The observation of parallel glide dislocations in molecular dynamics studies closes the theory-experiment-simulation linkage. In this study, we also compare the nucleation of dislocations from a diffusion wedge with nucleation from a crack. Further, we present preliminary results of modeling constrained diffusional creep using discrete dislocation dynamics simulations.


1992 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 961-969 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.M. McMeeking ◽  
L.T. Kuhn

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