Grain growth in sputtered nanoscale PdIn thin films

Abstract

Using transmission electron microscopy we investigated grain growth in 30-nm thick sputter-deposited PdIn thin films that were annealed in a differential scanning calorimeter for 5–60 min at temperatures from 300 to 550 °C. The sequence of grain growth was found to begin with normal grain growth with monomodal and lognormal grain size distributions. Secondary grain growth was observed in late stages with a bimodal grain size distribution. A grain growth exponent n=2.3±0.2 was obtained by fitting the measured grain sizes at all stages of growth to the grain growth law R ̄ t n− R ̄ 0 n=αt at three temperatures 500, 525 and 550 °C. At 420 °C, however, a significantly higher value of n (∼4.5) was obtained. The activation energy for grain growth within the temperature range of 500–550 °C was found to be 54±3 kJ/mol.