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Competitive Motions of Grain-Boundary and Free Surface in Selecting Thin Film Morphology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

B. Sun
Affiliation:
Mechanical and Environmental Engineering Department, and Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93111
Z. Suo
Affiliation:
Mechanical and Environmental Engineering Department, and Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93111
W. Yang
Affiliation:
Engineering Mechanics Department, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
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Abstract

During annealing of a polycrystalline thin film, grain-boundaries and film surfaces move. If the grain-boundaries move faster, the grains having the lowest free energy grow at the expense of others, resulting in a continuous film with large grains. If the film surfaces move faster, they groove along their junctions with the grain-boundaries, breaking the film to islands. This paper describes analytic solutions for steady surface motions, and discusses the morphology selection.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1997

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