Engineering Mechanics 397: Thin Film Mechanics

Time: Tuesday and Thursday 2:00 - 3:30 pm

Place: ECJ 1.214, University of Texas at Austin

Instructor: Rui Huang, WRW 117D, (512) 471-7558, ruihuang@mail.utexas.edu

Lecture notes (coming soon)

Homewrok sets (coming soon)

Brief Outline of Topics

• Introduction to thin film processes: deposition methods, growth modes, microstructures

• Stress in thin films: growth stress, epitaxial stress, Stoney formula, wafer curvature

• Fracture and delamination: channeling cracks, interface debonding
  

• Film buckling: buckle-delamination, buckling without delamination (wrinkling), pressurized bulging

• Plasticity and dislocations: strength and hardening, dislocation formation and interactions

• Creep and mass transport: grain-boundary diffusion, interface diffusion, deformation mechanisms, stress-induced voiding, electromigration

• Morphological evolution: chemical potential, surface roughening, self-assembly of quantum dots

  
  

Auxiliary notes

• Mechanical Properties of Thin Films, William D. Nix, Stanford University
• Fracture Mechanics of Thin Films and Multilayers, John W. Hutchinson, Harvard University
• Fracture Mechanics of Thin Films and Composite Materials, J. W. Hutchinson and Z. Suo

Other references

• Thin Film Materials: Stress, Defect Formation and Surface Evolution, by L.B. Freund and S. Suresh. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Materials Science of Thin Films (2nd ed.), by M. Ohring. Academic Press, 2002.
• W.D. Nix, Mechanical properties of thin films. Metall. Trans. 20A, 2217-2245 (1989).
• J. W. Hutchinson and Z. Suo, Mixed-Mode Cracking in Layered Materials. Advances in Applied Mechanics 29, 63-191 (1991).
• L.B. Freund, The mechanics of dislocations in strained-layer semiconductor materials. Advances in Applied Mechanics 30, 1-66 (1994).
• Z. Suo,  Reliability of interconnect structures.

Remarks

• Prerequisite: a graduate course on solid mechanics.
• No textbook is required. Notes will be posted periodically.