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Mechanical properties of porous methyl silsesquioxane and nanoclustering silica films using atomic force microscope

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Abstract

Mechanical properties of porous methyl silsesquioxane samples with dielectric constant 2.4 and 2.0 and a recently developed nanoclustering silica film samples with dielectric constants 2.3 and 2.0 were evaluated using an atomic force microscope based nanoindentation. It was found that the Young’s modulus and the hardness decrease while the fracture toughness increases with a decrease in the dielectric constant in the same type of material. Moreover, the Young’s modulus and the hardness of the nanoclustering silica films were observed to be at least twice and fracture toughness values ~1.3–1.5 higher than those for methyl silsesquioxane films with similar dielectric constants. The high resolution topographic imaging capability of atomic force microscope was shown to be particularly useful in the measurement of cracks generated by the ultra-low indentation loads, and the evaluation of the fracture toughness of the nanoscale volumes of materials.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by NSF under Grant No. 0324492. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. We thank G. Spencer from Freescale Motorola and Sammy Saito from CCIC for providing MSQ and NCS samples, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180-3590, USA

    C. Gaire, Y. Ou, G.-C. Wang & T.-M. Lu

  2. Catalysts and Chemicals Ind. Co., Ltd., 13-2, Kitaminato-Machi, Wakamatsu-Ku, Kitakyushu-Shi, 808-0027, Japan

    H. Arao, M. Egami & A. Nakashima

  3. Department of Mechanical, Aeronautical and Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180-3590, USA

    R. C. Picu

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  1. C. Gaire
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Correspondence to C. Gaire.

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Gaire, C., Ou, Y., Arao, H. et al. Mechanical properties of porous methyl silsesquioxane and nanoclustering silica films using atomic force microscope. J Porous Mater 17, 11–18 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10934-008-9259-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10934-008-9259-y

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