Grain area distributions in evolving thin films

Many material properties depend on the grain size of the single crystals which make up the bulk material including, mechanical strength, electrical conductivity, and creep resistance. It is therefore important when comparing two crystalline specimens, that one be able to determine whether or not the grain sizes are statistically different. This information will allow one to estimate whether the material properties of the two materials will differ. Equally important is understanding how the grain size changes during processing, particularly how the grain size increases with annealing time. In this paper we examine the grain size, as determined by area, of evolving succinonitrile thin films. The applicability of several tabulated distributions is assessed, and the self-similarity is examined. Many of these have been derived for two-dimensional films and are supported by the results of computer simulation. In this paper we examine grain growth in thin films. We find that the gamma distribution best describes the area distribution and that the distribution is not self-similar in time. Correlating material properties to the breadth of the distribution is suggested for future work.