Electrical and mechanical behaviour of metal thin films with deformation-induced cracks predicted by computational homogenisation

Motivated by advances in flexible electronic technologies and by the endeavour to develop non-destructive testing methods, this article analyses the capability of computational multiscale formulations to predict the influence of microscale cracks on effective macroscopic electrical and mechanical material properties. To this end, thin metal films under mechanical load are experimentally analysed by using in-situ confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and in-situ four point probe resistance measurements. Image processing techniques are then used to generate representative volume elements from the laser intensity images. These discrete representations of the crack pattern at the microscale serve as the basis for the calculation of effective macroscopic electrical conductivity and mechanical stiffness tensors by means of computational homogenisation approaches. A comparison of simulation results with experimental electrical resistance measurements and a detailed study of fundamental numerical properties demonstrates the applicability of the proposed approach. In particular, the (numerical) errors that are induced by the representative volume element size and by the finite element discretisation are studied, and the influence of the filter that is used in the generation process of the representative volume element is analysed

Effect of annealing on the size dependent deformation behavior of thin cobalt films on flexible substrates

The effect of film thickness as well as the influence of heat treatment on the deformation behavior of thin cobalt films 50 2000 nm on polyimide substrates was investigated using various tensile tests. Straining under an optical light microscope provides information about the fracture strain and cracking behavior. The annealed films exhibit enhanced crack onset strains between 4 and 7 compared to the as deposited films with fracture strains of 1 2 . This is partly achieved by a mechanically induced martensitic phase transformation of cobalt from the face centered cubic FCC to the hexagonal closed packed HCP phase. Thereby, it was shown that the heat treatment can be used to increase the amount ofmetastable FCC phase. Complementary synchrotron diffraction experiments were used to determine the lattice strains which initially increase during straining. After reaching a maximum, the lattice strains decrease in the case of the as deposited films due to crack formation and in the case of the annealed films due the strain induced phase transformation and localized plastic deformation in the form of necks. At higher engineering strains, the formation of cracks is also observed in the heat treated samples. Additionally, a decrease of the maximum lattice strain could be found for the HCP phase below a film thickness of 200 nm and grain size of 50 nm in the as deposited films which is caused by crackin

Two stage cracking of metallic bi layers on polymer substrates under tension

Cu Nb nanoscale metallic multilayers have been extensively investigated to understand how their mechanical behavior is influenced by the individual layer thickness. The general observed trend is that the yield stress of the multilayer increases with decreasing layer thickness. Important mechanical behaviors that have not been studied in depth are the fracture of these multilayers and adhesion energy between the multilayer films and their substrate. Here, the influences of the layer thickness, layer order, and initial residual stresses of Cu Nb multilayers on polyimide were examined using in situ x ray diffraction and confocal laser scanning microscopy under tensile loading. With these techniques, it was possible to calculate the stresses developing in the individual materials and measure buckles that could be used to evaluate the interfacial adhesion. Layer thickness, deposition order, and the initial residual stresses were not shown to influence the initial fracture strains of the Cu Nb multilayer systems under tensile loading conditions. However, the adhesion energy between the multilayer and substrate was affected by the layer deposition order and by the initial residual stresse