Fuyuki Yoshida

Low-temperature fabrication of polycrystalline Si thin film using Al-induced crystallization without native Al oxide at amorphous Si/Al interface

Low-temperature fabrication of polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin film has been performed by Al-induced crystallization (AIC), and the structural properties have been investigated. In our experiments, to prevent native oxidation of Al film, an amorphous silicon (a-Si)/Al bilayer was formed on the SiO2/Si substrate by electron beam evaporation without breaking the vacuum. The a-Si/Al/SiO2/Si structure was then heated at a low temperature of 400°C to induce AIC. It was confirmed that layer exchange of the a-Si/Al bilayer is induced even though there is no native oxidation of Al film, which was demonstrated by scanning transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis. The mechanism for layer exchange of the a-Si/Al bilayer has been discussed. Furthermore, it was verified by scanning electron microscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry that the a-Si/Al thickness ratio of roughly 1:1 is suitable to achieve a flat surface morphology of poly-Si. In addition, it was found, by X-ray diffraction and orientation imaging microscopy, that the Si(111)-oriented grain becomes dominant with decreasing thickness of the a-Si/Al bilayer.

Annealing Behavior and Recrystallized Texture in ARB Processed Copper

The recrystallization behavior and texture development in copper accumulative roll-bonding (ARB) processed by various cycles (2, 4 and 6 cycle) were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis and SEM/EBSP method. The exothermic peaks caused by recrystallization appeared at 210 ~ 253 in each sample. The peak positions shifted to lower temperature as the number of ARB cycles increased. This result indicated that the evolution of finer microstructure with increasing number of the ARB cycles enhanced the occurrence of recrystallization at lower temperature. The stored energy calculated from the DSC curve of the ARB processed copper increased with the increasing strains. During an annealing, the preferential growth of cube-oriented grains ({100}<001>) occurred in each sample. The recystallization behavior of ARB processed copper having low stacking fault energies was distinguished from that of so-called “recovery type” materials, i.e. aluminum and low carbon steels, which shows rather continuous changes in microstructure during annealing. The accumulated strains provided the driving force for the preferential growth, which was the same mechanism as the preferential growth in normally rolled copper. The sharpest cube texture developed in ARB processed copper by 4 cycles. The difference of cube texture development between 2 cycles and 4 cycles was caused by the distribution of cube-oriented regions which corresponded to the nucleation sites of recrystallized grains before annealing. More nanocystalline layers in the vicinity of bonded interfaces were distributed in ARB processed copper by 6 cycles than 4cycles. The nanocystalline structure could grow faster than the cube-oriented grains and led to the inhibition of sharp cube texture in the ARB processed copper by 6 cycles.

Evaluation of Creep Deformation Mechanism of Heat Resistant Steel by Stress Change Test

In order to evaluate creep deformation mechanism of heat resistant steels, stress change tests were conducted during creep tests. In this study, it was confirmed that the dislocation behavior during the creep tests was in viscous manner, because no instantaneous plastic strain was observed at stress increments. Transient behavior was observed after stress changes for all kinds of steel in this work. Mobility of dislocation was evaluated by the observed backward creep behavior after stress reduction. Internal stress was evaluated by the change of creep rate in stress increment, and mobile dislocation density was evaluated with the estimated mobility of dislocation and the change of creep rate in stress increment. It was found that the variation of mobile dislocation density during creep deformation showed the same tendency as the variation of creep rate. Therefore mobile dislocation density is the dominant factor that influences the creep rate variation in creep deformation of heat resistant steels investigated in this work. The mobility of dislocation showed a good correlation with 1/T and it is related with the amount of solute Mo that is a solution strengthening element. Microstructure of crept specimens was observed by TEM to discuss the validation of these results.© 2007 ASME

Grain boundary structure in ARB processed copper

Grain boundary structures in the Accumulative roll-bonding (ARB) processed copper (ARB-Cu) have been studied. The grain boundary structures were observed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). In order to clarify the difference between the grain boundaries in ARB-Cu and equilibrium boundaries, calculated atomic structure of symmetric tilt grain boundaries with <110> common axis (<110> symmetric tilt grain boundary; <110> STGB) in Cu were used. The near 14° boundary in the ARB-Cu could be described by the dislocation model, but the dense dislocation region existed near the grain boundary. The high angle boundaries in ARB-Cu could be described by the structural units which were obtained by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Furthermore, in the 2 cycles and 6 cycles ARB-Cu (2cARB-Cu and 6cARB-Cu), the deformation twin boundaries could be observed and described by the structural unit. Therefore, it was concluded that the grain boundary structure in the ARB-Cu was not much different from the normal equilibrium grain boundary and explained by conventional dislocation and structural unit models.

Grain Boundary Migration of Tilt Σ11 and Σ27 Boundaries in Pure Aluminum

Migrations of <110> tilt S 11 and S 27 boundaries in 99.99% purity aluminum have been investigated by Sun and Bauer technique as a function of temperature. In the S 11 tilt boundary, the activation energy for grain boundary migration is about 1/2 of the energy for Al-atom bulk-diffusion, indicating that the boundary motion may be governed by the grain boundary diffusion. While in the S 27 tilt boundary, the activation energy for grain boundary migration is about 125kJ/mol, which agrees with the energy for Al-atom bulk-diffusion. Study of boundary structure observation by high resolution electron microscopy revealed that the grain boundary structure of S 27 tilt boundary was consisted of edge dislocation array in which a space between dislocations was very short. It is considered that climb motion of the dislocations controlled to the motion of tilt boundaries consisted of edge dislocation array. From these results, it is concluded that the boundary motion of S 27 tilt boundary may be governed by climb motion of their dislocations controlled by Al-atom bulk-diffusion.