Abstract
The apparent fracture toughness for a series of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition SiNx:H films with film stress skewed from 300 MPa tensile to 1 GPa compressive were measured using nanoindentation. The nanoindentation results show the measured fracture toughness for these films is a linear function of the intrinsic film stress and can cause the fracture toughness to vary from as high as > 8 MPa⋅√m for compressive films to as low as < 0.5 MPa⋅√m for tensile films. Other film properties such as density and modulus were also measured and not observed to correlate strongly with the measured fracture toughness values. Based on these results, we propose a simple method for adjusting the apparent fracture toughness measured by nanoindentation experiments to the actual intrinsic fracture toughness of the material.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
