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Void-mediated coherency-strain relaxation and impediment of cubic-to-hexagonal transformation in epitaxial metastable metal/semiconductor TiN/Al0.72Sc0.28N multilayers
Linköping University, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Thin Film Physics. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
Linköping University, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Thin Film Physics. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2837-3656
Karlsruhe Institute Technology, Germany; Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany; Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.
Virginia Tech, USA.
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2017 (English)In: Physical Review Materials, E-ISSN 2475-9953, Vol. 1, no 3, article id 033402Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Bulk metastable phases can be stabilized during thin-film growth by employing substrates with similar crystal structure and lattice parameter, albeit over a thickness range limited by coherency-strain relaxation. Expanding that strategy, growth of superlattices comprising one stable and another metastable compound with similar crystal structure and lattice parameters are known to yield epitaxial stabilization over a few nanometers of thickness. In this work, the high-pressure rocksalt (B1) phase of Al0.72Sc0.28N was stabilized epitaxially in a multilayer with TiN with thicknesses of up to 26 nm. In order to investigate the microstructural changes leading to the phase transformation of the metastable B1 phase to its wurtzite allomorph, we demonstrate a design based on a multilayer architecture with systematically varying thicknesses of the metastable compound within a constant-thickness lattice of stable metallic TiN with the cubic rocksalt structure. The multilayer films show an increasing hardness and elastic modulus for decreasing period thickness, in correspondence with both coherency-strain and Koehler hardening. The phase transition is accompanied by an increase of lattice strain with increasing multilayer periods, and resulting ultimately in coherency-strain relaxation upon phase transformation. Further, we show that the phase transformation is mediated by voids decorating the {130} planes that separate regions of different growth rates and act as additional growth fronts for wurtzite growth during the phase transformation. The TiN/(Al, Sc) N interfaces themselves remain atomically sharp and smooth until the interface structure roughens along with the epitaxial rocksalt to wurtzite transition of (Al, Sc) N. These results show the strong influence of the voids on controlling the target thickness of epitaxially stabilized thin-film growth to the range relevant for applications, such as coatings, plasmonic materials, and electronic device technology, where the mechanical integrity of the material is critical.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
AMER PHYSICAL SOC , 2017. Vol. 1, no 3, article id 033402
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Condensed Matter Physics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-143743DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.1.033402ISI: 000416565900001OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-143743DiVA, id: diva2:1166699
Note

Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council [2011-6505, 2013-4018]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University [SFO-Mat-LiU 2009-00971]; National Science Foundation; US Department of Energy [CBET-1048616]; Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT); Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility [2015-015-010151]

Available from: 2017-12-15 Created: 2017-12-15 Last updated: 2020-12-15

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