Abstract
Copper–zirconium bulk alloy and Cu–Zr alloy films are prepared by vacuum smelting and magnetron sputtering, respectively, and subsequently annealing is conducted. Results show that Cu–Zr bulk alloy and alloy films exhibit significantly different microstructure evolution behaviors after annealing due to different microstructures and residual stress states. CuxZr alloy compounds disperse at the grain boundary of Cu grains in as-cast and annealed Cu–Zr bulk alloys. However, unlike bulk alloys, a large number of polyhedral Cu particles are formed on the Cu–Zr thin films’ surface upon thermal annealing. Kinetically, the residual compressive stress in the Cu–Zr films promotes the formation of Cu particles. The influencing factors and the path for mass transport in the formation of the particles are discussed. The large-specific surface area particles/film composite structure has potential applications in Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering, catalysis, and other fields.
Highlights
As the thickness of the film decreases to nanometer scale, the atomic diffusion and migration behaviors in thermal, electric, and stress fields become increasingly prominent during preparation and service processes [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Compared with as-cast alloys, the intensity of diffraction peaks of the Cu–Zr bulk alloys annealed at 360 ◦ C increased significantly, indicating that the grain size of the alloys grew gradually during annealing
Weak Zr (222) and ZrO2 (213) diffraction peaks can be observed in the XRD spectra of annealed Cu–Zr bulk alloys, which can be attributed to the fact that Cu and Zr are almost insoluble at room temperature, and the supersaturated fine Zr grains dispersed at the Cu grain boundaries
Summary
As the thickness of the film decreases to nanometer scale, the atomic diffusion and migration behaviors in thermal, electric, and stress fields become increasingly prominent during preparation and service processes [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The resistance to electric, thermal, and stress induced atomic migrations in Cu thin films are of great importance for the reliability of electronic devices. Less attention has been paid to the evolution of microstructures and physical properties of electric devices on flexible polyimide (PI) substrates. Certain components of Cu–Zr bulk alloys tend to form amorphous structures, but study on the thermal stability of the Zr–Cu films A comparative study of the microstructure evolution of Cu–Zr bulks and Cu–Zr alloyed thin films on flexible PI substrates are investigated
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