AFM BASED FRACTURE ANALYSIS IN MICRO- AND NANOMATERIALS

摘要

With the ongoing miniaturization in micro- and nanotechnological product engineering new reliability issues will arise.The increasing interface-to-volume ratio in highly integrated systems and nanoparticle filled materials and unsolved questions of size effect of nanomaterials are challenges for experimental reliability evaluation.To fulfill this needs the authors developed the nanoDAC method (nano Deformation Analysis by Correlation), which allows the determination and evaluation of 2D displacement fields based on scanning probe microscopy (SPM) data.In-situ SPM scans of the analyzed object are carried out at different thermo-mechanical load states.The obtained topography-, phase- or error-images are compared utilizing grayscale cross correlation algorithms.This allows the tracking of local image patterns of the analyzed surface structure.The measurement results of the nanoDAC method are full-field displacement and strain fields.Due to the application of SPM equipment deformations in the nanometer range can be easily detected.The method can be performed on bulk materials, thin films and on devices I.e microelectronic components, sensors or MEMS/NEMS.Furthermore, the characterization and evaluation of micro- and nanocracks or defects in bulk materials, thin layers and at material interfaces can be carried out.In addition to the experimental method an adaptation of the measured data to finite element analysis is presented enabling a combined experimental and numerical approach to reliability assessment on the nanoscale.