Tung-Han Chuang, Yin-Hsuan Chen, Po-Ching Wu

Abstract: Ag nanotwinned thin film with a thickness of about 4 μm has been evaporated on an 8-inch Si wafer with the assistance of ion beam bombardment. FIB cross-sectional imaging revealed many columnar grains with an average width of about 0.5 μm containing numerous parallel Ag nanotwins. The XRD spectrum showed a strong Ag (111) peak without any other crystal orientations both in the central and edge regions, indicating the (111) preferred orientation of the Ag nanotwinned films. The results were consistent with top-view EBSD inverse pole figure analysis showing a very high density of the (111) orientation, 85.2±1.9%, on the surface of the Si wafer. A modified stress relaxation model is proposed to explain the enhancement of the formation of a high density of nanotwins in the Ag films evaporated with simultaneous ion bombardment.

Keywords: Ag nanotwin; deposition, ion bombardment, (111) preferred orientation, stress relaxation

Date Published: December 22, 2022
DOI: 10.11159/ijmmme.2022.002

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