Critical misfit of epitaxial growth metallic
thin films
thin films
(Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Ministry of Education;
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University,
Changchun 130025, China)
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University,
Changchun 130025, China)
Abstract: The critical misfit of epitaxial growth metallic thin films fc was thermodynamically considered. It is found that there exists a competition between the energy of the misfit dislocation of film and non-coherent interface energy of film-substrate. Equilibrium between these energies was present at a critical atomic misfit fc. When the atomic misfit is larger than the critical value, epitaxial growth does not occur. The critical misfit of the epitaxial growth thin films can be predicted. The results show that fc is proportional to the non-coherent interface energy of the film-substrate, and inversely proportional to the elastic modulus and the thickness of the film.
Key words: epitaxial growth film; atomic misfit; dislocation; interface energy