fracture

In recent development of deformable electronics, it has been noticed that thin metal films often rupture at small tensile strains. Here we report experiments with Cu films deposited on polymeric substrates, and show that the rupture strains of the metal films are sensitive to their adhesion to the substrates. Well-bonded Cu films can sustain strains up to 10% without appreciable cracks, and up to 30% with discontinuous microcracks. By contrast, poorly bonded Cu films form channel cracks at strains about 2%. The cracks form by a mixture of strain localization and intergranular fracture.

Using the Griffith energy method for analysis of cavitation under hydrostatic tension we conclude that the critical tension tends to infinity when the cavity radius approaches zero (IJSS, 2006, doi: 10.1016/j.ijsolstr.2006.12.022). The conclusion is physically meaningless, of course. Moreover, if we assume that the failure process occurs at the edge of the cavity then the critical tension should be length-independent for small but finite cavities while the Griffith analysis always exhibits length-dependence. The main Griffith idea - introduction of the surface energy - is controversial because it sets up the characteristic length, say, surface energy over volume energy. By no means is this approach in peace with the length-independent classical continuum mechanics.

If you are interested by the computational aspects of fracture and failure of materials and structures,there is a dedicated conference for you : CFRAC 2007, which will be held in Nantes, France, 11-13 June 2007. It is an thematic conference of the European Community in Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS). The for abstract is now closed. This conference wil involve a certian number

GRIFFITH AA, The phenomena of rupture and flow in solids. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Sereis A, 221:163-198, 1921.

Jeannette M. Jacques, Ting Y. Tsui, Andrew J. McKerrow, and Robert Kraft

To improve capacitance delay performance of the advanced back-end-of-line (BEOL) structures, low dielectric constant organosilicate glass (OSG) has emerged as the predominant choice for intermetal insulator. The material has a characteristic tensile residual stress and low fracture toughness. A potential failure mechanism for this class of low-k dielectric films is catastrophic fracture due to channel cracking. During fabrication, channel cracks can also form in a time-dependent manner due to exposure to a particular environmental condition, commonly known as stress-corrosion cracking. Within this work, the environmental impacts of pressure, ambient, temperature, solution pH, and solvents upon the channel cracking of OSG thin films are characterized. Storage under high vacuum conditions and exposure to flowing dry nitrogen gas can significantly lower crack propagation rates. Cracking rates experience little fluctuation as a function of solution pH; however, exposure to aqueous solutions can increase the growth rate by three orders of magnitude.

Dear Colleagues:


The 13^th International Conference on Experimental Mechanics (ICEM13, http://www.icem13.gr) will be held on July 1-6, 2007 in Alexandroupolis, Greece. It is our pleasure to announce that the Conference will include a special symposium organized by us entitled, “Plasticity, Fracture and Fatigue at the Micro and Nano Scales,” which will focus on recent developments in this area within the larger scope of assessing research needs in a variety of applications of interest.

One of the most common forms of cohesive failure observed in brittle thin film subjected to a tensile residual stress is channel cracking, a fracture mode in which through-film cracks propagate in the film. The crack growth rate depends on intrinsic film properties, residual stress, the presence of reactive species in the environments, and the precise film stack. In this paper, we investigate the effect of various buffer layers sandwiched between a brittle carbon-doped-silicate (CDS) film and a silicon substrate on channel cracking of the CDS film.

Ting Y. Tsui, Andrew J. McKerrow, and Joost J. Vlassak

Published in the Journal of The Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 54 (5), 887-903 (2006)

Abstract – Organosilicate glass (OSG) is a material that is used as a dielectric in advanced integrated circuits. It has a network structure similar to that of amorphous silica where a fraction of the Si-O bonds has been replaced by organic groups. It is well known from prior work that OSG is sensitive to subcritical crack growth as water molecules in the environment are transported to the crack tip and assist in rupturing Si-O bonds at the crack tip. In this study, we demonstrate that exposure of an OSG containing film stack to water prior to fracture results in degradation of the adhesion of the film stack. This degradation is the result of the diffusion of water into the film stack. We propose a quantitative model to predict adhesion degradation as a function of exposure time by coupling the results of independent subcritical crack growth measurements with diffusion concentration profiles. The model agrees well with experimental data and provides a novel method for measuring the water diffusion coefficient in film stacks that contain OSG. This study has important implications for the reliability of advanced integrated circuits.