Anisotropy of grain boundary energies as cause of abnormal grain growth in electroplated copper films

Paik, Jong-Min; Park, Young-Joon; Yoon, Min-Seung; Lee, Je‐Hun; Joo, Young‐Chang

doi:10.1016/s1359-6462(02)00563-8

Cited by 32 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…The general driving force for secondary grain growth in electroplated copper is the reduction of the total energy. This occurs primarily via grain boundary motion, which reduces the grain boundary area and hence increases the average grain size [44,97]. Suggested driving forces for the grain growth include the stress, which is accumulated during the plating process, dislocation loops, and interface and grain boundary [95].…”

Section: Self-annealing In Electroplated and Sputtered Copper Filmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing the mean grain size in copper films and features

et al. 2008

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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.

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Section: Self-annealing In Electroplated and Sputtered Copper Filmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing the mean grain size in copper films and features

et al. 2008

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“…There are 5 stages involved in the process: Microstructure evolution has a large influence on the material properties generally and can be characterized by abnormal grain growth behavior where a few selected grains grow by replacing the other grains (Ubach et al, 2004). The main cause of the abnormal growth is due to the presence of anisotropy of either the surface energy or the strain density (Paik et al, 2003). Anisotropy of the grain boundary energy has been considered to be origin of the abnormal grain growth observed in bulk materials.…”

Section: Wwwintechopencommentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Sintering Temperature Variations on Microstructure Changes of LTCC Substrate

Alias¹

2012

Sintering of Ceramics - New Emerging Techniques

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“…As their performance and properties are governed by their microstructures, grain growth in thin films has gained a lot of interests. 1) Different from the normal grain growth, grain growth in thin films is generally abnormal and often accompanied by texture evolution, [2][3][4][5][6][7] in which a few grains with specific textures grow much faster than the others. The driving forces for abnormal grain growth have been attributed to various factors, among which surface energy anisotropy is one of the most important driving forces due to large surface-tovolume ratios in thin films.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The driving forces for abnormal grain growth have been attributed to various factors, among which surface energy anisotropy is one of the most important driving forces due to large surface-tovolume ratios in thin films. 2,3,[8][9][10][11] Moreover, anisotropies in strain energy, 2) grain boundary energy 4,6) and mobility 7) may also contribute to abnormal grain growth. In addition, drag forces due to impurities 6,7) or grain boundary grooving 12,13) also play an important role in triggering abnormal grain growth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Phase Field Model of Surface-Energy-Driven Abnormal Grain Growth in Thin Films

Deng

Rokkam

2011

Mater. Trans.

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A phase field model is established to investigate the surface-energy-driven abnormal grain growth in thin films. It is consistent with sharp interface model and its parameters are connected to material properties. Numerical simulations show that surface energy anisotropy and drag effect are required to motivate the abnormal grain growth. The size of a single abnormal grain increases linearly as a function of time, and it exhibits power-law scaling with film thickness and Arrhenius relationship with temperature. For multiple abnormal grains, their area fraction can be characterized by the Avrami equation with exponent around 2 at large times. These features agree well with the theoretical and experimental results.

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Anisotropy of grain boundary energies as cause of abnormal grain growth in electroplated copper films

Cited by 32 publications

References 12 publications

Increasing the mean grain size in copper films and features

Increasing the mean grain size in copper films and features

The Effects of Sintering Temperature Variations on Microstructure Changes of LTCC Substrate

A Phase Field Model of Surface-Energy-Driven Abnormal Grain Growth in Thin Films

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