Thickness dependence on the thermal stability of silver thin films

Abstract

This study investigates the dependence of Ag resistivity on film thickness during temperature ramping as a means to access thermal stability. In situ van der Pauw four-point probe analysis is used to determine the onset temperature; the temperature when the electrical resistivity deviates from linearity during the temperature ramp. At that point, the silver thin films become unstable due to void formation and growth during thermal annealing. The thermal stability of Ag thin films on SiO2 in a vacuum is greatest when thicknesses are greater than 85 nm. Using an Arrhenius relation in terms of onset temperature and film thickness, an activation energy (0.32±0.02 eV) for the onset of agglomeration in Ag thin films on SiO2 ramped at a rate of 0.1 °C/s is determined. This value is consistent with the activation energy for surface diffusion of silver in a vacuum, which is believed to be the dominant mechanism for agglomeration of silver thin film.

Time-domain and energetic bombardment effects on the nucleation and coalescence of thin metal films on amorphous substrates

“…To calculate D, Eq. (2), an attempt frequency, ν 0 , of 5x10 12 s -1 is used [3], while the energy barrier for surface diffusion E D , according to the literature, is in the range 0.3 to 0.45 eV [32]. The most common termination for fcc metals (like Ag) is the (111) surface and the Ag Figure 10).…”

Size dependence of nanostructures: Impact of bond order deficiency

“…Kim et al [406] investigated the thickness dependence of Ag resistivity during temperature ramping as a means to access thermal stability of Ag thin films. In situ four-point probe analysis is used to determine the onset temperature at which the electrical resistivity deviates from linearity during the temperature ramping.…”

Formation and morphological evolution of self-similar 3D nanostructures on weakly interacting substrates

“…Currently, the most detailed atomistic * kostas.sarakinos@liu.se description of far-from-equilibrium 3D island formation is based on homoepitaxial systems in which 3D islands (mounds) form by deposition onto existing small islands, followed by atomic-step descent limited by the Ehlrich-Schwöbel barrier [15][16][17][18][19]. However, for weakly interacting film/substrate systems-including Ag/SiO 2 [20][21][22][23][24], Pd/TiO 2 [25], Cu/ZnO [26,27], and Dy/graphene [4,28]-3D islands develop before the initially formed one-atom-high islands are large enough to efficiently capture vapor-phase deposition flux. Moreover, 3D island formation is also known to occur in the absence of deposition flux due to surface restructuring via dewetting [29].…”