skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Solid state dewetting of thin plasmonic films under focused cw-laser irradiation

Journal Article · · Acta Materialia
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [1]
  1. Trinity College Dublin, Dublin (Ireland). School of Physics, CRANN and AMBER
  2. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division; Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
  3. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division

Elevated temperatures and large thermal gradients are a significant source of component failure in microelectronics, and is the limiting factor in heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). Here, we have investigated the effect of solid-state dewetting in Au thin films, as a function of local temperature, film thickness, and substrate adhesion. In this work, a localised temperature rise is induced in thin (≤ 50 nm) polycrystalline Au films on SiO2 substrates via focused continuous-wave laser irradiation at 488 nm. The magnitude and distribution of the total temperature rise is measured using CCD-based thermoreflectance. This also allows a sensitive measurement of the temperature at which dewetting occurs, showing that for thin (≤ 50 nm) Au films without adhesion layers, rapid dewetting can occur at temperatures as low as 50° C. The time decay of the reflected light from the illuminating laser is used to monitor locally the dynamics of solid state dewetting. TEM diffraction analysis shows significant changes in the microstructure and crystallographic texture of the films as far as 10 µm away from the illuminated area. The use of a thin metallic adhesion layer (such as Ti or Cr) is shown to significantly improve the adhesion of the Au to the substrate and reduce the tendency towards dewetting, but does not entirely protect it from changes to the crystallographic texture.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; Science Foundation Ireland (SFI); Western Digital Technologies, Inc.; USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357; SFI/12/RC/2278
OSTI ID:
1416974
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1496407
Journal Information:
Acta Materialia, Vol. 145, Issue C; ISSN 1359-6454
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 15 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (41)

Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording journal November 2008
Heat-assisted magnetic recording by a near-field transducer with efficient optical energy transfer journal March 2009
Thermal issues and their effects on heat-assisted magnetic recording system (invited) journal April 2012
Periodic mass shedding of a retracting solid film step journal May 2000
Solid-State Dewetting of Thin Films journal August 2012
Tunable Localized Plasmon Transducers Prepared by Thermal Dewetting of Percolated Evaporated Gold Films journal November 2011
Anisotropic hole growth during solid-state dewetting of single-crystal Au–Fe thin films journal April 2012
Solid state dewetting and stress relaxation in a thin single crystalline Ni film on sapphire journal August 2014
Refractory Plasmonics journal April 2014
Dewetting of Au and AuPt alloy films: A dewetting zone model journal March 2013
Thermal stability and electrical properties of Ag–Ti films and Ti/Ag/Ti films prepared by sputtering journal January 2013
Engineering gold alloys for plasmonics journal September 2014
Solid-state dewetting of ultra-thin Au films on SiO 2 and HfO 2 journal November 2014
Dewetting behavior of electron-beam-deposited Au thin films on various substrates: graphenes, quartz, and SiO2 wafers journal December 2014
Thin film metallization of oxides in microelectronics journal November 1973
Gold thin-film electrodes: an EQCM study of the influence of chromium and titanium adhesion layers on the response journal November 2001
Influence of Ti and Cr Adhesion Layers on Ultrathin Au Films journal October 2017
Metallic Adhesion Layer Induced Plasmon Damping and Molecular Linker as a Nondamping Alternative journal May 2012
Effect of Thin Cr and Cu Adhesion Layers on Surface Plasmon Resonance at Au/SiO 2 Interfaces journal July 2016
Annealing Effects on Interfacial Fracture of Gold-Chromium Films in Hybrid Microcircuits journal January 1999
Improved Adhesion of Gold Thin Films Evaporated on Polymer Resin: Applications for Sensing Surfaces and MEMS journal May 2013
CCD-based thermoreflectance microscopy: principles and applications journal June 2009
Capillary instabilities in thin, continuous films journal February 1992
Comparison of the agglomeration behavior of Au and Cu films sputter deposited on silicon dioxide journal March 2003
Solid-State Thermal Dewetting of Just-Percolated Gold Films Evaporated on Glass: Development of the Morphology and Optical Properties journal May 2013
Grain-boundary grooving by surface diffusion with strong surface energy anisotropy journal May 2003
Characterization of the temperature dependence of the thermoreflectance coefficient for conductive thin films journal February 2015
Characterization of thin metal films via frequency-domain thermoreflectance journal January 2010
Capillary instabilities in thin films journal November 1990
Microstructure evolution during dewetting in thin Au films journal October 2010
Microstructural evolution and solid state dewetting of epitaxial Al thin films on sapphire (α-Al2O3) journal July 2017
Reliability challenges for copper interconnects journal March 2004
Structure and electrical conductivity of cosputtered gold‐chromium alloy films journal June 1973
Thermodynamic assessment of the Au-Ti system journal March 2001
Void formation in gold films on yttrium-doped zirconia in the initial stage of de-wetting journal October 2014
Texture evolution and microstructural changes during solid-state dewetting: A correlative study by complementary in situ TEM techniques journal August 2016
Texture development in polycrystalline thin films journal July 1995
Hillock formation during electromigration in Cu and Al thin films: Three‐dimensional grain growth journal March 1995
Development of 〈110〉 texture in copper thin films journal April 2002
Biaxial alignment in sputter deposited thin films journal December 2006
Advanced engineering of single-crystal gold nanoantennas journal January 2017

Cited By (2)

Laser-Assisted Surface Texturing of Ti/Zr Multilayers for Mesenchymal Stem Cell Response journal December 2019
Strongly confined localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) bands of Pt, AgPt, AgAuPt nanoparticles journal November 2019

Figures / Tables (11)