Controlled delamination of metal films by hydrogen loading

Abstract

In this work we quantitatively determine the adhesion energy between metal films and their substrates. Therefore a new controlled buckling technique is established, applying the strong compressive in-plane stress that results in thin films clamped on rigid substrates during hydrogen loading. When the elastic energy stored in the H-loaded thin film exceeds the adhesion energy between film and substrate, delamination occurs. At the onset of delamination, a critical hydrogen concentration, a critical stress value and a critical bending of the substrate are present, which are quantitative measures for the adhesion energy and permit its calculation. As the critical values are determined at the onset of delamination, plastic deformation is negligible, which denies the quantitative determination of adhesion energies in conventional test setups. In multilayer-systems, adhesion energies between substrates and films that hardly absorb hydrogen can be measured by the controlled buckling technique, when the films of interest are coated with hydrogen absorbing films (active layer). The measurements are performed easily and can be repeated under the same test conditions, while variables such as the thickness of the coating materials or the boundary surface structure can be varied and optimized. In this work the adhesion energies of different materials on polycarbonate and niobium on sapphire are investigated.