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Effect of film thickness on the stretchability and fatigue resistance of Cu films on polymer substrates

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Abstract

The thickness dependence of the electrical stability under monotonic and cyclic tensile loading is investigated for Cu films on polymer substrates. As for monotonic tensile deformation, thicker films show better stability than thinner films due to their higher ductility and the larger capability of strain accommodation. For the fatigue resistance, however, a more complex behavior was observed depending on the amount of the applied strain. For low strain amplitude in the high cycle fatigue (HCF) regime, thinner films exhibit longer fatigue life because the larger strength of thinner films suppresses dislocation movement and damage nucleation. However, for high strain amplitudes in the low cycle fatigue (LCF) regime, the fatigue life for thinner films is drastically reduced compared to thicker films. It is shown that fatigue coefficients in the LCF regime can be obtained when applying the Coffin–Manson relationship.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by the Global Leading Technology Program of the Office of Strategic R&D Planning (OSP) funded by the Korean government (Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy) (No. 10042537). IS is supported by KIST Research Funding (2E24692). B. J. Kim also acknowledges support of the KIT guest program for his stay at the Institute for Applied Materials. The work was also supported by the Helmholtz Virtual Institute VI-530.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Surface Technology Division, Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), Changwon, 641-831, Republic of Korea

    Byoung-Joon Kim

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-744, Korea

    Hae-A-Seul Shin, Ji-Hoon Lee, Tae-Youl Yang & Young-Chang Joo

  3. Institute for Applied Materials, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, 76021, Germany

    Thomas Haas, Patric Gruber & Oliver Kraft

  4. High Temperature Energy Materials Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, 136-791, Korea

    In-Suk Choi

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  1. Byoung-Joon Kim
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  2. Hae-A-Seul Shin
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Correspondence to Oliver Kraft or Young-Chang Joo.

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Kim, BJ., Shin, HAS., Lee, JH. et al. Effect of film thickness on the stretchability and fatigue resistance of Cu films on polymer substrates. Journal of Materials Research 29, 2827–2834 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2014.339

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