Abstract
A recent transmission-electron-microscope (TEM) study has shown, using the defocus contrast technique, that thin evaporated gold films contain a high density of small voids.In this communication, we report a TEM study on the structure and distribution of voids in thin films prepared by evaporation, sputtering, and electrodeposition and discuss a possible mechanism, by which voids are generated during film growth.In evaporation, sputtering, and electrodeposition processes, the entrapment of gaseous and/or organic impurities at growing film surface cannot be avoided due to their relatively unclean environment. Such impurity entrapment could take place conveniently at surface irregularities such as growth steps, grain boundaries and valleys between aggregates of crystallites. The incorporation of trapped impurities, therefore, results in the formation of voids at the above three sites. It can be easily seen that the spacial distribution of voids generated at grain boundaries should closely follow the grain structure of thin films.
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