| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
MS&T21: Materials Science & Technology
|
| Symposium
|
Controlled Synthesis, Processing, and Applications of Structural and Functional Nanomaterials
|
| Presentation Title |
Mechanisms of Hillock Formation and Nanostructural Self-assembly during Vapor-deposition of Phase-separating Alloy Films |
| Author(s) |
Rahul Raghavan, Kumar Ankit |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Kumar Ankit |
| Abstract Scope |
The formation of protruding grains, or hillocks, on the surface of nanostructured alloy films, is typically attributed to internal residual stresses arising due to a difference in thermal expansion coefficients of the film and the substrate. However, recent nanostructural characterization of phase-separated alloy films has indicated the role of disparate elemental mobilities which can contribute to the growth of hillocks. Given these findings, we report a 3D phase-field approach to numerically investigate the role of deposition rates, phase fraction, and separation kinetics, on the nanostructural self-assembly and growth of hillocks in immiscible alloy films. With the aid of n-point polytope analysis, we explore the processing conditions under which nano-sized hillocks evolve in arrays of distinguishable symmetries. Based on an extensive parametric study, we elucidate the influence of adatom mobility and surface contact angles on the hillock formation in vapor-deposited alloy films. |