The development of grain structure during growth of metallic films

Abstract

The mechanisms that have been proposed to govern the grain structure of vapor deposited metallic films are reviewed, and some problems in these theories discussed. A new phenomenological description of grain growth based on the concept of the variation in mobility of individual grain boundaries allows three characteristic regimes of growth to be distinguished. Detailed observations on the grain structure of both thick and thinner metal films have been made to clarify the variation of grain size and morphology with substrate temperature. The new model for grain growth allied with surface diffusion mechanisms can explain in a consistent manner the experimentally observed grain structures. © 1984.