THE ELASTICITY MEASUREMENTS OF ALUMINUM NM-FILMS

The vibrating reed technique applicable to the elasticity measurements for the metallic films of nm thickness deposited onto reed substrates and its application to vacuum-deposited aluminium films are reported: Young's modulus of the aluminium films E(Al,f) shows a good agreement with that of bulk aluminium E(Al,b) for films of thickness d > 100 nm. For smaller d, E(Al,f) decreases from E(Al,b) with decreasing d, especially for d < 10 nm. The decrease in E(Al,f) is tentatively attributed to the increasing effects of interfaces between crystallites in the films. The results of internal friction observed for films of about 50 nm thickness are very similar to those for the films of 100 nm reported by Berry, i.e. the strong decrease in the peak temperatures of the so-called grain-boundary relaxations is observed.