The Polymer Film Casting Process – An Overview

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 264-275
Author(s):  
Y. Demay ◽  
J. F. Agassant

Abstract Cast film extrusion allows producing technical polymer films for packaging and coating applications. Different kinds of defects may be observed. For packaging applications, the challenge is to obtain very thin films in stable conditions at the highest throughput. For coating applications, the challenge is to master the film width reduction (called neck-in) and the induced non-uniform film thickness (called dog-bone defect). Well instrumented experiments point out the influence of the polymer and of the processing conditions on the occurrence of these defects. Numerical models of increasing complexity allow capturing the main experimental features and this makes possible to propose technological solutions to delay or even to suppress defects occurrence.

1997 ◽  
Vol 473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lane ◽  
Robert Ware ◽  
Steven Voss ◽  
Qing Ma ◽  
Harry Fujimoto ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTProgressive (or time dependent) debonding of interfaces poses serious problems in interconnect structures involving multilayer thin films stacks. The existence of such subcriticai debonding associated with environmentally assisted crack-growth processes is examined for a TiN/SiO2 interface commonly encountered in interconnect structures. The rate of debond extension is found to be sensitive to the mechanical driving force as well as the interface morphology, chemistry, and yielding of adjacent ductile layers. In order to investigate the effect of interconnect structure, particularly the effect of an adjacent ductile Al-Cu layer, on subcriticai debonding along the TiN/SiO2 interface, a set of samples was prepared with Al-Cu layer thicknesses varying from 0.2–4.0 μm. All other processing conditions remained the same over the entire sample run. Results showed that for a given crack growth velocity, the debond driving force scaled with Al-Cu layer thickness. Normalizing the data by the critical adhesion energy allowed a universal subcriticai debond rate curve to be derived.


1998 ◽  
Vol 536 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. B. Pevtsov ◽  
N. A. Feoktistov ◽  
V. G. Golubev

AbstractThin (<1000 Å) hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon films are widely used in solar cells, light emitting diodes, and spatial light modulators. In this work the conductivity of doped and undoped amorphous-nanocrystalline silicon thin films is studied as a function of film thickness: a giant anisotropy of conductivity is established. The longitudinal conductivity decreases dramatically (by a factor of 109 − 1010) as the layer thickness is reduced from 1500 Å to 200 Å, while the transverse conductivity remains close to that of a doped a- Si:H. The data obtained are interpreted in terms of the percolation theory.


Author(s):  
Erika Schutte ◽  
Jack Martin

Abstract An ellipsometry based measurement protocol was developed to evaluate changes to MEMS sensor surfaces which may occur during packaging using unpatterned test samples. This package-level technique has been used to measure the 0-20 Angstrom thin films that can form or deposit on die during the packaging process for a variety of packaging processing conditions. Correlations with device performance shows this to be a useful tool for packaged MEMS device and process characterization.


Coatings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 510
Author(s):  
Yongqiang Pan ◽  
Huan Liu ◽  
Zhuoman Wang ◽  
Jinmei Jia ◽  
Jijie Zhao

SiO2 thin films are deposited by radio frequency (RF) plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique using SiH4 and N2O as precursor gases. The stoichiometry of SiO2 thin films is determined by the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and the optical constant n and k are obtained by using variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometer (VASE) in the spectral range 380–1600 nm. The refractive index and extinction coefficient of the deposited SiO2 thin films at 500 nm are 1.464 and 0.0069, respectively. The deposition rate of SiO2 thin films is controlled by changing the reaction pressure. The effects of deposition rate, film thickness, and microstructure size on the conformality of SiO2 thin films are studied. The conformality of SiO2 thin films increases from 0.68 to 0.91, with the increase of deposition rate of the SiO2 thin film from 20.84 to 41.92 nm/min. The conformality of SiO2 thin films decreases with the increase of film thickness, and the higher the step height, the smaller the conformality of SiO2 thin films.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1409
Author(s):  
Ofelia Durante ◽  
Cinzia Di Giorgio ◽  
Veronica Granata ◽  
Joshua Neilson ◽  
Rosalba Fittipaldi ◽  
...  

Among all transition metal oxides, titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of the most intensively investigated materials due to its large range of applications, both in the amorphous and crystalline forms. We have produced amorphous TiO2 thin films by means of room temperature ion-plasma assisted e-beam deposition, and we have heat-treated the samples to study the onset of crystallization. Herein, we have detailed the earliest stage and the evolution of crystallization, as a function of both the annealing temperature, in the range 250–1000 °C, and the TiO2 thickness, varying between 5 and 200 nm. We have explored the structural and morphological properties of the as grown and heat-treated samples with Atomic Force Microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy, X-ray Diffractometry, and Raman spectroscopy. We have observed an increasing crystallization onset temperature as the film thickness is reduced, as well as remarkable differences in the crystallization evolution, depending on the film thickness. Moreover, we have shown a strong cross-talking among the complementary techniques used displaying that also surface imaging can provide distinctive information on material crystallization. Finally, we have also explored the phonon lifetime as a function of the TiO2 thickness and annealing temperature, both ultimately affecting the degree of crystallinity.


Coatings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Weiguang Zhang ◽  
Jijun Li ◽  
Yongming Xing ◽  
Xiaomeng Nie ◽  
Fengchao Lang ◽  
...  

SiO2 thin films are widely used in micro-electro-mechanical systems, integrated circuits and optical thin film devices. Tremendous efforts have been devoted to studying the preparation technology and optical properties of SiO2 thin films, but little attention has been paid to their mechanical properties. Herein, the surface morphology of the 500-nm-thick, 1000-nm-thick and 2000-nm-thick SiO2 thin films on the Si substrates was observed by atomic force microscopy. The hardnesses of the three SiO2 thin films with different thicknesses were investigated by nanoindentation technique, and the dependence of the hardness of the SiO2 thin film with its thickness was analyzed. The results showed that the average grain size of SiO2 thin film increased with increasing film thickness. For the three SiO2 thin films with different thicknesses, the same relative penetration depth range of ~0.4–0.5 existed, above which the intrinsic hardness without substrate influence can be determined. The average intrinsic hardness of the SiO2 thin film decreased with the increasing film thickness and average grain size, which showed the similar trend with the Hall-Petch type relationship.


2020 ◽  
Vol 102 (21) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Geprägs ◽  
Björn Erik Skovdal ◽  
Monika Scheufele ◽  
Matthias Opel ◽  
Didier Wermeille ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 162 ◽  
pp. 01042
Author(s):  
Yen Chin Teh ◽  
Ala’eddin A. Saif ◽  
Zul Azhar Zahid Jamal ◽  
Prabakaran Poopalan

2006 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan E. Pleim

Abstract This note describes a simple scheme for analytical estimation of the surface-layer similarity functions from state variables. What distinguishes this note from the many previous papers on this topic is that this method is specifically targeted for numerical models in which simplicity and economic execution are critical. In addition, it has been in use in a mesoscale meteorological model for several years. For stable conditions, a very simple scheme is presented that compares well to the iterative solution. The stable scheme includes a very stable regime in which the slope of the stability functions is reduced to permit significant fluxes to occur, which is particularly important for numerical models in which decoupling from the surface can be an important problem. For unstable conditions, simple schemes generalized for varying ratios of aerodynamic roughness to thermal roughness (z0/z0h) are less satisfactory. Therefore, a simple scheme has been empirically derived for a fixed z0/z0h ratio, which represents quasi-laminar sublayer resistance.


Author(s):  
T. M. Correia ◽  
Q. Zhang

Full-perovskite Pb 0.87 Ba 0.1 La 0.02 (Zr 0.6 Sn 0.33 Ti 0.07 )O 3 (PBLZST) thin films were fabricated by a sol–gel method. These revealed both rhombohedral and tetragonal phases, as opposed to the full-tetragonal phase previously reported in ceramics. The fractions of tetragonal and rhombohedral phases are found to be strongly dependent on film thickness. The fraction of tetragonal grains increases with increasing film thickness, as the substrate constraint throughout the film decreases with film thickness. The maximum of the dielectric constant ( ε m ) and the corresponding temperature ( T m ) are thickness-dependent and dictated by the fraction of rhombohedral and tetragonal phase, with ε m reaching a minimum at 400 nm and T m shifting to higher temperature with increasing thickness. With the thickness increase, the breakdown field decreases, but field-induced antiferroelectric–ferroelectric ( E AFE−FE ) and ferroelectric–antiferroelectric ( E FE−AFE ) switch fields increase. The electrocaloric effect increases with increasing film thickness. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Taking the temperature of phase transitions in cool materials’.


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