We are pleased to officially announce the

2008 Gordon Research Conference on Thin Film and Small-Scale Mechanical Behavior

July 27 - August 1, 2008 at Colby College, Waterville Maine

Hello,

 I am trying to determine the CTE of an polymer by coating a thin film (~1 micron) onto a thick substrate (1 mm) and observing the thin film thickness change as a function of temperature.  I have the ability to measure the film thickness and temperture very accurately, but I am unsure how to calculate the CTE from the resulting data. The complication arises because the thin film is constrained to the substrate surface due to adhesion.  The thin film and substrate can only move independently by changing thickness.  How do I go about calculting CTE from this "contrained thin film" data?

 Thanks for the help,

Frank Palmieri

Graduate Student in Chemical Engineering

Prof. Philippe Geubelle, Dr. Rajesh Kitey and I are organizing a symposium on Mechanics of Thin Films and Layered Materials  at 2007 Annual Meeting of the Society for Engineering Science, Texas A&M University, October 21-24, 2007. 

The abstract deadline has been extended until June 30, 2007.  Abstracts should prepared according to the instructions posted on the web at http://ses2007.tamu.edu/abstract.php. 

We are looking forward to an exciting symposium and hope you will be able to participate.

Sorry for the wrong image I posted previously. This is the correct one. If possible, I wish someone can delete my previous post.

The image of the surrounding area of the sun flower , which seems to be the interconnected assemble of the delamination pattern under biaxial stress observed by Hutchinson and Thouless in Acta Metall. Mater. in 1992

The image of the surrounding area of the sun flower, which seems to be the interconnected assemble of the delamination pattern under biaxial stress observed by Hutchinson and Thouless in Acta Metall. Mater. in 1992

Optical microscope image of delimation of thin film by electrochemical deposition was taken one week ago.The large magnitue of compressive stress was thought to be the origin (in situ stress measurements indicated the stress evoultion attained a steady state after the delamination occured). The black center would be a pin-hole that has been oftern identified in the thin films grown by electrodepostion.

The attached file is a set of class notes developed by W.D. Nix of Stanford University and used in a graduate course on Mechanical Properties of Thin Films. These notes have been used in the graduate course MSE 353 since the late 1980's. That course has been taught every year or so since that time. The notes were last updated in January of 2005. The reader will see a note to the effect that many of the figures and illustrations in the file have been taken from the work of students and colleagues at Stanford without proper attribution.