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A new approach to determine wedge-indented interfacial toughness in soft-film hard-substrate systems with application to low-k films on Si substrate

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Abstract

A new approach has been proposed to determine the interfacial toughness of soft-film hard-substrate systems based on wedge indentation experiments. In this approach, a comprehensive finite element study was undertaken to correct de Boer’s solutions, which were used to measure the wedge-indented interfacial toughness. Two-dimensional indentation simulations were first performed to systematically study the effects of the plastic properties of the films and the interfacial toughness itself on the correction factor for de Boer’s equations, which were used as closed-form solutions to evaluate the interfacial toughness. Further, three-dimensional simulations were used to investigate the effects of stress states on the interfacial toughness, which depends on the ratio of the indenter length to the film thickness. A universal correction expression for de Boer’s equations was obtained using a regression method. With this expression, a reverse algorithm was proposed to determine the interfacial toughness, and extensive numerical calculations were performed to verify that the present approach accurately evaluates the interfacial toughness. Finally, this new approach was applied to analyze the wedge indentation of low-k dielectric films, namely, methylsilsesquioxane and black diamond (BDTM) films, on a Si substrate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117576, Singapore

    Lei Chen & Kaiyang Zeng

  2. Department of Engineering Mechanics, Institute of High Performance Computing, Singapore, 138632, Singapore

    Lei Chen & Yongwei Zhang

  3. Academy of Frontier Science, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China

    Chongmin She

  4. School of Aerospace Systems, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45221-0070, USA

    Guirong Liu

Authors
  1. Lei Chen
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  2. Kaiyang Zeng
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  3. Yongwei Zhang
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  4. Chongmin She
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  5. Guirong Liu
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Correspondence to Kaiyang Zeng.

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Chen, L., Zeng, K., Zhang, Y. et al. A new approach to determine wedge-indented interfacial toughness in soft-film hard-substrate systems with application to low-k films on Si substrate. Journal of Materials Research 27, 2872–2883 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2012.319

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2012.319

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