Toughness enhancement in TiN/WN superlattice thin films

Growth modes of nanoparticle superlattice thin films.

We report on the fabrication and characterization of iron oxide nanoparticle thin film superlattices. The formation into different film morphologies is controlled by tuning the particle plus solvent-to-substrate interaction. It turns out that the wetting vs dewetting properties of the solvent before the self-assembly process during solvent evaporation plays a major role in determining the resul...

Mode Dependent Toughness and the Delamination of Compressed Thin Films

We consider the buckle-driven delamination of compressed thin lms. For a wide class of patterns of delamination, it is shown that the loading on the delamination front progressively goes from mode I to mode II during growth of the blister. As a result, the mode dependence of the lm/substrate interface excludes widespread delamination. This explains the observations of blisters of nite extent, w...

Interfacial toughness measurements for thin films on substrates

There are more than 200 different methods for measuring adhesion, suggesting it to be material, geometry and even industry specific. This availability has exploded at least partly due to the arrival of dissimilar material interfaces and thin films and the ease with which microfabrication techniques apply to silicon technology. Having an eye toward those tests utilized for thin films, this paper...

Enhancement for Precise Spectroscopy of Thin Films

In biology molecules and macromolecules like sugars, proteins, DNA, and RNA are of 10 utter importance. Detecting their presence as well as their conformation is still a challenge in many 11 cases. It is well known that the vibrational states of such molecules lie from the infrared to the 12 TeraHertz range. Spectroscopy can be used to detect such compounds and probe their 13 conformation. Stil...

Photoluminescence enhancement in nanocomposite thin films of CdS–ZnO