Zhigang Suo's blog

We describe ratcheting plastic deformation in a thin-film structure

We describe an example of self-assembly driven by electric field

We introduce surface stress, and show how it might drive self-assembly.

Semiconductor particles in the size rage 1-100 nm have special optoelectronic properties dictated by the quantum mechanics of the potential well. These particles are known as quantum dots. Fabricating structures in this size range has been a great challenge of our time. Self-assembly has become an attractive method to fabricate quantum dots. By 1990, it was known that when Ge was deposited on Si substrate, cube on cube, the Ge film is flat up to a few monolayers, and then forms three-dimensional islands.

In service, an interconnect line carries an intense electric current. The conduction electrons impact metal atoms, and motivate the atoms to diffuse in the direction of electron flow. The process, known as electromigration, has been the most menacing and persistent threat to interconnect reliability.

Early aluminum lines had the width much larger than the thickness. They behaved like blanket films. When narrow aluminum lines were introduced, in early 1980s, with the width comparable to the thickness, voids were observed in such narrow interconnects on wafers held in ovens, or even on wafers left on shelves at room temperature. The voids may sever the interconnects.

A polycrystal, held at temperature for some time t, the average grain diameter grows. A grain grows at the expense of its neighbors: small grains disappear and big ones get bigger. Total number of atoms is conserved.

Hull and Rimmer (1959) studied grain boundary cavitation. Small voids were observed at grain boundaries, particularly those transverse to the applied tensile stress. Fracture results from the growth and coalescence of these voids.

Rayleigh (1878) examined a common experience: a thin jet of liquid is unstable and breaks into droplets. When a jet is thin enough, the effect of gravity is negligible compared to surface energy. The jet changes its shape to reduce the total surface energy. Liquid flow sets the time.

A polished polycrystal has a flat surface. At room temperature, the surface remains flat for a long time. At an elevated temperature atoms move. The surface grows grooves along triple junctions, where the surface meet grain boundaries. The grooves reveal the grain boundaries in the microscope. Atoms may move in many ways. They may diffuse in the lattice, diffuse on the surface, or evaporate into the vapor phase. Here we will only consider surface diffusion. Atoms diffuse on the surface away from the triple junction, making a dent along the junction, and piling two bumps nearby.