The process of solid-state dewetting of Au thin films studied by in situ scanning transmission electron microscopy

Niekiel, Florian; Schweizer, Peter; Kraschewski, Simon M.; Butz, Benjamin; Spiecker, Erdmann

doi:10.1016/j.actamat.2015.01.072

Cited by 76 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 75 publications

(116 reference statements)

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“…1(f)). Such structured films of different thicknesses (6.3 and 8.4 nm) having crack-like voids have been used by F. Niekiel et al 15 as an irreversible temperature sensor. Here, it has been observed that among the variety of RSP's, only the material CAF can be defined for all the films, which can correlate the morphological transformation and transition thresholds of various stages of growth from island-like structure to a continuous film.…”

Section: A Study Of As-deposited Filmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…13 Such morphological transformation by thermal annealing has also been used to construct an optical response based irreversible temperature sensors. [14][15][16][17] The optical response of Au films is strongly sensitive to its real space parameters (RSP's) like the sizes, shapes, number density of the nanoparticles and the covered area fractions (CAF) in the films along with its surrounding and the substrate material. 18,19 The average values, as well as the statistical distributions of all the RSP's of the films are important, which finally decides the optical response of Au thin films.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many experiments have been performed to study the morphological growth mechanism of Au thin films as a result of thermal dewetting at high temperature but for short time annealing. 15,16,43 However, systematic and detailed study of in-situ annealing of films for a longer time using a TEM technique is required for better understanding of the thermal dewetting mechanism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some groups have studied the morphological transformation of pure metallic (Ag), bimetallic (Ag-Co) and alloy (Cu-Ni) thin films of different thicknesses to understand the dewetting process during laser annealing. [35][36][37][38] Normally X-ray diffraction, 39,40 electrical probing, 41 auger electron spectroscopy 42 and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) 15 techniques are used to monitor and characterize the processes involved during the post-deposition annealing of the metal thin films. However most of the above techniques provide limited understanding about the growth mechanism, morphological reorganization and crystallization kinetics during the post-deposition annealing of thin films because of geometrical modeling based estimation of RSP's from the large sequence of observation data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A study of growth and thermal dewetting behavior of ultra-thin gold films using transmission electron microscopy

Sudheer

Mondal

et al. 2017

AIP Advances

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The growth and solid-state dewetting behavior of Au thin films (0.7 to 8.4 nm) deposited on the formvar film (substrate) by sputtering technique have been studied using transmission electron microscopy. The size and number density of the Au nanoparticles (NPs) change with an increase in the film thickness (0.7 to 2.8 nm). Nearly spherical Au NPs are obtained for <3 nm thickness films whereas percolated nanostructures are observed for ≥3 nm thickness films as a consequence of the interfacial interaction of Au and formvar film. The covered area fraction (CAF) increases from ∼13 to 75 % with the change in film thickness from 0.7 to 8.4 nm. In-situ annealing of ≤3 nm film produces comparatively bigger size and better sphericity Au NPs along with their narrow distributions, whereas just percolated film produces broad distribution in size having spherical as well as elongated Au NPs. The films with thickness ≤3 nm show excellent thermal stability. The films having thickness >6 nm show capability to be used as an irreversible temperature sensor with a sensitivity of ∼0.1 CAF/°C. It is observed that annealing affects the crystallinity of the Au grains in the films. The electron diffraction measurement also shows annealing induced morphological evolution in the percolated Au thin films (≥3 nm) during solid-state dewetting and recrystallization of the grains.

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Section: A Study Of As-deposited Filmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A study of growth and thermal dewetting behavior of ultra-thin gold films using transmission electron microscopy

Sudheer

Mondal

et al. 2017

AIP Advances

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“…[27][28][29] Normally, thin metal films are metastable as-deposited and, upon heating, tend to dewet and form islands due to surface-energy minimization, which can …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

In situ transmission electron microscope formation of a single-crystalline Bi film on an amorphous substrate

Neklyudova

Sabater

Erdamar

et al. 2017

Applied Physics Letters

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We have performed a range of in situ heating experiments of polycrystalline Bi films of 22–25 nm-thickness in a transmission electron microscope (TEM). This shows that it is possible to locally transform a polycrystalline thin film into a [111]-oriented single-crystalline film, whereby the unique feature is that the original thickness of the film is maintained, and the substrate used in our experiments is amorphous. The single-crystalline areas have been created by heating the Bi film to temperatures close to the melting temperature with additional heating by focusing of the electron beam (e-beam), which results in local melting of the film. The film does not collapse by dewetting, and upon subsequent cooling, the film transforms into a single-crystalline [111] oriented area. The observed phenomenon is attributed to the presence of a thin Bi-oxide layer on top of Bi film. We show that removal of the Bi-oxide layer by heating the film in a H2 gas atmosphere results in changes in the Bi film thickness and dewetting upon in situ heating in the TEM.

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On the applicability of electron diffraction to precisely measure temperature in TEM

Niekiel

Kraschewski

Müller

et al. 2016

European Microscopy Congress 2016: Proceedings

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With the overwhelming success of in situ electron microscopy, fueled by the recent advances in instrumentation, an everlasting question in electron microscopy comes into focus again: the precise determination of the temperature of the sample, especially in in situ heating experiments [1]. So far temperature is determined by sensors (thermocouples, resistance thermometers) placed close to the sample. In this work we elaborate on the applicability of parallel beam electron diffraction in TEM to precisely measure temperature directly on the sample and on a local scale. Well defined metallic particles are applied on the sample surface using a dewetting process after thin film deposition. SAED is used to determine the lattice spacing from ring patterns averaging over a large number of particles. The determined lattice spacing can be translated into temperature using reference data on thermal expansion. To test the performance of this approach, a MEMS‐based sample heating system from DENSsolutions is used inside of a double corrected FEI Titan Themis³ 300 . Various metals (Ag, Au, Pt) are used to cover different temperature ranges. Fig. 1 shows image and diffraction pattern of a typical setup. To allow for the highest precision, a proper alignment of the microscope is crucial. Therefore a method to assure perfect beam parallelity has been developed in this project, based on the change in diffraction pattern upon changing the sample position relative to the eucentric height. The accuracy of the evaluation based on peak fitting to the azimuthally averaged radial profile critically depends on the determination of the center and correction of astigmatism in the ring pattern. An algorithm has been employed allowing for correction of the astigmatism to the fourth order in the ring pattern (exemplarily shown in Fig. 2). The error due to the evaluation method can be estimated from the results of the evaluation of 100 subsequent diffraction patterns at a constant temperature shown in Fig. 3. The position of the (220) ring of Pt is determined to be 7.27183 ± 0.00023 nm −1 (corresponding to a temperature accuracy of approximately ± 3.5 K). The temperature accuracy can be tailored to the particular application by selecting a different metal. Low melting metals show a higher thermal expansion increasing the sensitivity of the temperature measurement, but, on the other hand, limiting the maximum usage temperature because of melting or sublimation. Fig. 4 demonstrates the applicability of the presented approach. Ag particles have been used to measure the temperature during a dynamic in situ experiment, showing a very good agreement with the temperature reading from the holder.

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The process of solid-state dewetting of Au thin films studied by in situ scanning transmission electron microscopy

Cited by 76 publications

References 75 publications

A study of growth and thermal dewetting behavior of ultra-thin gold films using transmission electron microscopy

A study of growth and thermal dewetting behavior of ultra-thin gold films using transmission electron microscopy

In situ transmission electron microscope formation of a single-crystalline Bi film on an amorphous substrate

On the applicability of electron diffraction to precisely measure temperature in TEM

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