Modification of Fracture Energy of Niobium/sapphire Interface By Impurity Doping

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe effect of interface composition on the fracture energy and fracture toughness of the niobium/sapphire system was studied. Niobium films with thickness of 100 nm were deposited on (0001) sapphire substrates by physical vapor deposition (PVD). The interface was doped with silver to reduce the interfacial cohesion. The amount of silver ranged from less than 2.1 monolayers to 6.4 monolayers as measured by Rutherford backscattering spectrometer (RBS). The microscratch test was used in determining the interfacial fracture energy and the interfacial fracture toughness. Both interfacial fracture energy Gc and fracture toughness Kc decrease non-linearly with the amount of silver, and level off for samples with larger silver thickness ( > 4.2 monolayers). The values of interfacial fracture energy range from 3.43 J/m2 - 9.20 J/m2 for the sample doped with 2.1 monolayer silver (sample B) to 0.05 J/m2 - 0.5 J/m2 for samples with silver levels above 4.2 monolayers (samples D and E). The corresponding fracture toughnesses are 0.80 MPa-m½ - 1.29 MPa-m½ for sample B and 0.09 MPa-m½ - 0.30 MPa-m½ for samples D and E.