Mechanical/Structural Properties of the Key Thin Film Materials Ag, Cu & Ni for Electronics Applications

Published

September 23, 2016

Author(s)

Daniel Josell, Yousuf Mohammed, Helmut Baumgart, Abdelmageed Elmustafa

Abstract

Metallic films of Ag, Cu, and Ni each of 150, 300, 600 and 1000 nm thick were deposited on Si using an electron-beam evaporation (e-beam) deposition system. A shutter was used to successively cover increments of 1" (2.54 cm) of the wafer at a time, starting with the wafer fully uncovered. A thin titanium layer of 10 nm is first deposited over the entire Si wafers followed by 150, 300, 600, and 1000 nm of the target material. Vacuum conditions at the start were ~1x10-7 torr (1.3x10-5 Pa) and reached as high as 2x10-6 torr during the copper deposition due to outgassing. The structural and surface properties were explored using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The nanomechanical properties were measured using nanoindentation to determine the modulus and hardness of the Ag, Cu, and Ni films. Nanocrystalline grain structure formation is observed to dominate the crystal film growth. The hardness increases as the film thickness decreases and remains nearly flat for the same film with depth except for the very thin films as they suffer what is known as tapping effect.

Citation

Electrochemical Society Transactions

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

copper, silver, nickel, nanoindentation

Citation

Josell, D. , Mohammed, Y. , Baumgart, H. and Elmustafa, A. (2016), Mechanical/Structural Properties of the Key Thin Film Materials Ag, Cu & Ni for Electronics Applications, Electrochemical Society Transactions (Accessed April 19, 2024)