Morphological and Electrical Properties of Silver Thin Films Sputter Deposited on LTCC Substrates

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 169-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Bittner ◽  
T. Bohnenberger ◽  
R. Engel ◽  
H. Seidel ◽  
U. Schmid

Screen printed noble metal thick films are commonly used as metallization on LTCC (low temperature cofired ceramics) substrates. When, however, geometries with a lateral resolution below 20 μm are needed for the realization of devices, alternative techniques are needed, and they are provided by standard thin film technology. To minimize conduction losses, silver (Ag) is favored due to a low bulk resistivity. To evaluate the potential of Ag as metallization, thin films are sputter deposited on glass and LTCC substrates under varying conditions (i.e., plasma power) with different film thicknesses ranging up to 1.75 μm. The microstructure of the Ag films is analyzed applying techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, focused ion beam, and x-ray diffraction. With the latter approach, a mean grain size of about 33 nm is measured independent of plasma power used for Ag deposition. In contrast, the texture strongly varies with deposition parameters resulting in an enhanced generation of (111) planes at higher plasma powers due to an increased adatom mobility. Furthermore, a higher degree in (111) orientation results in a lower resistivity of the Ag films. When the Ag films are postdeposition annealed at 500°C, the resistivity decreases by a factor of 2 compared with the “as deposited” state due to grain growth. Further, sublimation and agglomeration effects dominate leading to an increase in surface roughness and resistivity above average.

1993 ◽  
Vol 327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randolph E. Treece ◽  
James S. Horwitz ◽  
Douglas B. Chrisey

AbstractThin films of diamond and diamond-like carbon (DLC) are technologically important materials that serve as hard, scratch resistant and chemically inert coatings for tools and optics. Recent calculations suggest that β-C3N4 should be harder than diamond. We have deposited carbon nitride (CNx) thin films by pulsed laser deposition. The films were grown from a graphite target in a nitrogen background. The nitrogen source was either (a) a N2 gas atmosphere, or (b) a N2+/N+ ion beam generated by a Kaufman ion gun. A wide range of deposition parameters were investigated, such as deposition pressure (0.3-900 mTorr N2), substrate temperature (50 and 600°C), and laser fluence (1-4 J/cm2) and laser repetition rate (1-10 Hz). The films have been characterized by Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy, thin-film X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and micro-Raman spectroscopy. In general, the films were nitrogen deficient with a maximum nitrogen to carbon ratio (N/C) of 0.45 and a shift in the G band Raman peak consistent with amorphous CNx (a-CNx).


2005 ◽  
Vol 490-491 ◽  
pp. 655-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yao Gen Shen

The pattern formation during delamination and buckling in sputter-deposited tungsten thin films under large compressive stresses was investigated. The films were analyzed in situ by a cantilever beam technique, and ex situ by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and focused ion beam. Depending on the magnitude of compressive strain in thin films, different types of buckling patterns were observed. For stresses above a critical value, there was a regime of steady growth in which the incipient blister evolves into a regular sinusoidal-like propagation. At higher strains, the sinusoidallike wrinkles were developed with constant widths and wavelengths. Some of the wrinkles bifurcated to form branches. With further increase in stress the complicated buckling patches were formed with many irregular lobes. These types of pattern formation have been supported by elastic energy calculations.


2004 ◽  
Vol 808 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonghao Zhao ◽  
Jiangyong Wang ◽  
Eric J. Mittemeijer

ABSTRACTInitial interaction of a magnetron sputter deposited Al(100 nm, {111} fibre textured)/Si(150 nm, amorphous) bilayer, induced by isothermally annealing at 523 K for 60 min in a vacuum of 2.0×10−4 Pa, was studied by X-ray diffraction, Auger electron microscopy and focused-ion beam imaging techniques. Upon annealing, the crystalline Si had grown into the grain boundaries of the Al layer with a {111} texture, a crystallite size of approximate 12 nm and a tensile stress of +138 MPa. Simultaneously, the Al grains had grown into the Si layer from the original interface of the a-Si and Al sublayers with the lateral grain growth. The stress parallel to the surface of the Al layer had changed from +27 MPa to +232 MPa after annealing.


2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.F. Iriarte ◽  
F. Engelmark ◽  
M. Ottosson ◽  
I.V. Katardjiev

In this work, a systematic study of the influence of five deposition parameters, i.e., process pressure, substrate temperature, target power, and substrate bias, as well as gas composition on the residual stress in fully textured polycrystalline aluminum nitride thin films deposited on Si(100) wafers using the reactive sputtering method was performed. Post-growth residual stress measurements were obtained indirectly from radius of curvature measurements of the wafer prior to and after deposition. Two different techniques were used to determine the curvature: an optically levered laser beam and an x-ray diffraction method. Stresses in both cases were then evaluated using the Stoney formulation [G.G. Stoney, Proc. R. Soc. (London)A82,172 (1909)]. Both methods give similar results, with slight quantitative differences. The existence of a transition region between tensile and compressive stress previously reported in the literature is also confirmed. The transition is shown to be strongly dependent on the process parameters. Optimal films regarding stress were grown at 2 mtorr, 900 W at the target, a 20/45 Ar/N2gas mixture, and floating potential at the substrate. The substrate temperature did not influence the measured internal stress in the films.


2013 ◽  
Vol 549 ◽  
pp. 245-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Baimpas ◽  
Eric Le Bourhis ◽  
Sophie Eve ◽  
Dominique Thiaudière ◽  
Christopher Hardie ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
F. Ma ◽  
S. Vivekanand ◽  
K. Barmak ◽  
C. Michaelsen

Solid state reactions in sputter-deposited Nb/Al multilayer thin films have been studied by transmission and analytical electron microscopy (TEM/AEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The Nb/Al multilayer thin films for TEM studies were sputter-deposited on (1102)sapphire substrates. The periodicity of the films is in the range 10-500 nm. The overall composition of the films are 1/3, 2/1, and 3/1 Nb/Al, corresponding to the stoichiometric composition of the three intermetallic phases in this system.Figure 1 is a TEM micrograph of an as-deposited film with periodicity A = dA1 + dNb = 72 nm, where d's are layer thicknesses. The polycrystalline nature of the Al and Nb layers with their columnar grain structure is evident in the figure. Both Nb and Al layers exhibit crystallographic texture, with the electron diffraction pattern for this film showing stronger diffraction spots in the direction normal to the multilayer. The X-ray diffraction patterns of all films are dominated by the Al(l 11) and Nb(l 10) peaks and show a merging of these two peaks with decreasing periodicity.


CORROSION ◽  
10.5006/3881 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Karmiol ◽  
Dev Chidambaram

This work investigates the oxidation of a nickel based superalloy, namely Alloy X, in water at elevated temperatures: subcritical water at 261°C and 27 MPa, the transition between subcritical and supercritical water at 374°C and 27 MPa, and supercritical water at 380°C and 27 MPa for 100 hours. The morphology of the sample surfaces were studied using scanning electron microscopy coupled with focused ion beam milling, and the surface chemistry was investigated using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy before and after exposure studies. Surfaces of all samples were identified to comprise of a ferrite spinel containing aluminum.


Cerâmica ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 48 (305) ◽  
pp. 38-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. I. B. Bernardi ◽  
E. J. H. Lee ◽  
P. N. Lisboa-Filho ◽  
E. R. Leite ◽  
E. Longo ◽  
...  

The synthesis of TiO2 thin films was carried out by the Organometallic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) method. The influence of deposition parameters used during growth on the final structural characteristics was studied. A combination of the following experimental parameters was studied: temperature of the organometallic bath, deposition time, and temperature and substrate type. The high influence of those parameters on the final thin film microstructure was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy with electron dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction.


1999 ◽  
Vol 594 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Spolenak ◽  
C. A. Volkert ◽  
K. Takahashi ◽  
S. Fiorillo ◽  
J. Miner ◽  
...  

AbstractIt is well known that the mechanical properties of thin films depend critically on film thickness However, the contributions from film thickness and grain size are difficult to separate, because they typically scale with each other. In one study by Venkatraman and Bravman, Al films, which were thinned using anodic oxidation to reduce film thickness without changing grain size, showed a clear increase in yield stress with decreasing film thickness.We have performed a similar study on both electroplated and sputtered Cu films by using chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) to reduce the film thickness without changing the grain size. Stress-temperature curves were measured for both the electroplated and sputtered Cu films with thicknesses between 0.1 and 1.8 microns using a laser scanning wafer curvature technique. The yield stress at room temperature was found to increase with decreasing film thickness for both sets of samples. The sputtered films, however, showed higher yield stresses in comparison to the electroplated films. Most of these differences can be attributed to the different microstructures of the films, which were determined by focused ion beam (FIB) microscopy and x-ray diffraction.


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