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Monotonic and cyclic mechanical reliability of metallization lines on polymer substrates

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Abstract

Mechanical stability of Ag and Cu printed and evaporated metallization lines on polymer substrates is investigated by means of monotonic tensile and cyclic bending tests. It is shown that lines which demonstrate good performance during monotonic tests fail at lower strains during a cyclic bending tests. Evaporated lines with the grain size of several hundreds of nanometers have good ductility and consequently good stability during monotonic loading but at the same time they fail at low strains during cyclic bending. Printed lines with nanocrystalline microstructure, in contrast, demonstrate more intensive cracking during monotonic loading but higher failure strains during cyclic bending. Apart from the grain size effect, the effect of film thickness on the saturation crack density after cyclic bending is also demonstrated. Thinner films have higher crack density in accordance with the shear lag model.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was partially supported by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) through the program “Produktion der Zukunft”, Project 843648 and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) through project P27432-N20.

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Author notes

  1. Andreas Klug

    Present address: AVL List GmbH, Hans-List-Platz 1, A-8020, Graz, Austria

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science, Austrian Academy of Sciences and Department of Material Physics, Montanuniversität Leoben, Leoben, A-8700, Austria

    Oleksandr Glushko & Megan J. Cordill

  2. NanoTecCenter Weiz Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, Weiz, A-8160, Austria

    Andreas Klug

  3. Institut für Physik, Institut für Chemie & IRIS Adlershof, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, 12489, Germany

    Emil J. W. List-Kratochvil

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  1. Oleksandr Glushko
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Correspondence to Megan J. Cordill.

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Glushko, O., Klug, A., List-Kratochvil, E.J.W. et al. Monotonic and cyclic mechanical reliability of metallization lines on polymer substrates. Journal of Materials Research 32, 1760–1769 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2017.121

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