Effect of annealing on the size dependent deformation behavior of thin cobalt films on flexible substrates

Abstract

The effect of film thickness as well as the influence of heat treatment on the deformation behavior of thin cobalt films (50–2000nm) on polyimide substrates was investigated using various tensile tests. Straining under an optical light microscope provides information about the fracture strain and cracking behavior. The annealed films exhibit enhanced crack onset strains between 4 and 7% compared to the as-deposited films with fracture strains of 1–2%. This is partly achieved by a mechanically induced martensitic phase transformation of cobalt from the face-centered cubic (FCC) to the hexagonal-closed packed (HCP) phase. Thereby, it was shown that the heat treatment can be used to increase the amount of metastable FCC phase. Complementary synchrotron diffraction experiments were used to determine the lattice strains which initially increase during straining. After reaching a maximum, the lattice strains decrease in the case of the as-deposited films due to crack formation and in the case of the annealed films due the strain-induced phase transformation and localized plastic deformation in the form of necks. At higher engineering strains, the formation of cracks is also observed in the heat treated samples. Additionally, a decrease of the maximum lattice strain could be found for the HCP phase below a film thickness of 200nm and grain size of 50nm in the as-deposited films which is caused by cracking.