Texture Maps for Orientation Evolution During Grain Growth in Thin Films

1995 ◽  
Vol 403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven C. Seel ◽  
Roland Carel ◽  
Carl V. Thompson

AbstractOrientation selective grain growth in thin films arises due to anisotropy in materials properties. For continuous thin films, there are at least two orientation dependent driving forces for grain growth: (i) surface and interface energy anisotropy; (ii) strain energy anisotropy (both elastic and plastic). In fcc metals, the preferred growth of grains with (111) texture occurs due to their low surface and interface energy. Stresses in thin films arise during deposition and as a result of post-deposition annealing. A texture dependence of strain energy density arises in biaxially strained thin films due to anisotropy of elastic properties and/or orientation-dependent yield stresses. For most fcc metals, the strain energy driving force promotes the growth of (001) grains due to minimization of the combined elastic and plastic strain energy. The magnitudes of the orientation dependent driving forces for grain growth depend on the characteristics and processing conditions of the film and substrate. We have performed grain growth experiments for Ag films on single crystal Ni on MgO; Ag films on plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposited (PECVD) SiO2 on MgO; Ag films on oxidized Si; and Ni films on oxidized Si. The texture resulting from grain growth in films of different thicknesses and deposited at different temperatures were determined, and the results are presented in the form of texture maps. The texture which dominates as a result of grain growth can be understood through the use of texture maps and compares well with analytic models for texture development during grain growth in thin films.

1994 ◽  
Vol 343 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Carel ◽  
C. V. Thompson ◽  
H. J. Frost

ABSTRACTWe have simulated strain energy effects and surface- and interface-energy effects on grain growth in thin films, using properties of polycrystalline Ag (p-Ag) on single crystal (001) Ni on (001) MgO for comparison with experiments. Surface- and interface-energy and strain energy reduction drive the growth of grains of specific crystallographic orientations. The texture that will result when grain growth has occurred minimizes the sum of these driving forces. In the elastic regime, strain energy density differences result from the orientation dependence of the elastic constants of the biaxially strained films. In the plastic regime, strain energy also depends on grain diameter and film thickness. In p-Ag/(001) Ni, surface- and interface-energy minimization favors Ag grains with (11) texture. In the absence of a grain growth stagnation, the texture at later times is always (111). However, for high enough strains and large enough thicknesses, the strain energy driving force can favor a (001) texture at early times, which reverts to a (111) texture at later times, once the grains have yielded.


1994 ◽  
Vol 343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl V. Thompson

ABSTRACTThe performance and reliability of polycrystalline films are strongly affected by the average grain size and the distribution of grain sizes and orientations. These are often controlled through grain growth phenomena which occur during film formation and during subsequent processing. Abnormal rather than normal grain growth is most common in thin films, and leads to an evolution in the distribution of grain orientations as well as grain sizes, often leading to uniform or restricted crystallographic orientations or textures. Surface and interface energy minimization and strain energy minimization can lead to development of different textures, depending on which is dominant. The final texture resulting from grain growth depends on the film thickness, the deposition temperature, the grain growth temperature, the thermal expansion coefficients of the film and substrate, and the mechanical properties of the film, as well as other factors.


1994 ◽  
Vol 343 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Floro ◽  
C. V. Thompson

ABSTRACTAbnormal grain growth is characterized by the lack of a steady state grain size distribution. In extreme cases the size distribution becomes transiently bimodal, with a few grains growing much larger than the average size. This is known as secondary grain growth. In polycrystalline thin films, the surface energy γs and film/substrate interfacial energy γi vary with grain orientation, providing an orientation-selective driving force that can lead to abnormal grain growth. We employ a mean field analysis that incorporates the effect of interface energy anisotropy to predict the evolution of the grain size/orientation distribution. While abnormal grain growth and texture evolution always result when interface energy anisotropy is present, whether secondary grain growth occurs will depend sensitively on the details of the orientation dependence of γi.


2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 642-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Vanstreels ◽  
S.H. Brongersma ◽  
Zs. Tokei ◽  
L. Carbonell ◽  
W. De Ceuninck ◽  
...  

A new grain-growth mode is observed in thick sputtered copper films. This new grain-growth mode, also referred to in this work as super secondary grain growth (SSGG) leads to highly concentric grain growth with grain diameters of many tens of micrometers, and drives the system toward a {100} texture. The appearance, growth dynamics, final grain size, and self-annealing time of this new grain-growth mode strongly depends on the applied bias voltage during deposition of these sputtered films, the film thickness, the post-deposition annealing temperature, and the properties of the copper diffusion barrier layers used in this work. Moreover, a clear rivalry between this new growth mode and the regularly observed secondary grain-growth mode in sputtered copper films was found. The microstructure and texture evolution in these films is explained in terms of surface/interface energy and strain-energy density minimizing driving forces, where the latter seems to be an important driving force for the observed new growth mode. By combining these sputtered copper films with electrochemically deposited (ECD) copper films of different thickness, the SSGG growth mode could also be introduced in ECD copper, but this led to a reduced final SSGG grain size for thicker ECD films. The knowledge about the thin-film level is used to also implement this new growth mode in small copper features by slightly modifying the standard deposition process. It is shown that the SSGG growth mode can be introduced in narrow structures, but optimizations are still necessary to further increase the mean grain size in features.


1993 ◽  
Vol 317 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Floro ◽  
R. Carel ◽  
C. V. Thompson

ABSTRACTWe have investigated Epitaxial Grain Growth (EGG) in polycrystalline Ag films on Ni (001) substrates. EGG is driven by minimization of crystallographically anisotropie free energies such as the film/substrate interfacial energy and the film strain. Under some conditions EGG results in the preferred growth of the (111) epitaxial orientations that are predicted to minimize the interfacial energy. However, when Ag films are deposited on Ni (001) at low temperature, EGG experiments consistently find that (111) oriented grains are consumed by grains with (001) orientations predicted to have much higher interface and surface energy. The large elastic anisotropy of Ag can account for this discrepancy. The film thickness and the deposition temperature (relative to the grain growth temperature) determine whether strain energy or interface energy minimization dominates orientation evolution during grain growth.


1996 ◽  
Vol 441 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. F. Qu ◽  
A. Kitagawa ◽  
Y. Masaki ◽  
M. Suzuki

AbstractPoly-Si films with the preferential orientation to a random, a (100) and a (110) texture were annealed using a flat gas flame. Remarkable lateral grain growth of (111) grains was observed for poly-Si films with a random and a (110) texture, while in (100) texture films the growth of (100) grains predominated over other grains. There existed tensile stress in as-prepared films. Grains with different orientation were under a different tensile stresses, and such stress distributions on the orientation of grains were different for different textures. The tensile stress was found to become larger in grown grains after high temperature annealing, while the stress on shrunken grains decreased or turned to compressive stress after annealing. These results indicate that strain energy stored in grains is one of the important driving forces in secondary grain growth.


Author(s):  
Chenyang Bao ◽  
Xiang Peng ◽  
Yang Mei ◽  
Leiying Ying ◽  
Bao-Ping Zhang ◽  
...  

Since the emerging development of CsPbBr3 perovskite, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) became one of the most promising fabrication techniques to deposit precise, uniform perovskite thin films. However, the growth dynamic...


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