Kinetic studies of dimensional aspects in thin film grain growth

It has been shown that grain growth in succinonitrile thin films is accurately described by the Mullins-Von Neumann grain growth law. However, there is a small fraction of grains showing significant departures from ideal behavior (Palmer et al., Scripta metall. mater., 1994, 30, 633; Palmer et al., Metall. Mater. Trans. A, 1995, 26A, 1061). These grains are examined to see if they show departures from ideal behavior (the Uniform Boundary Model). It has been found that the vast majority of this small fraction of grains shows one of four distinct characteristics: they possess low-angle boundaries, they are small, they possess short boundaries, or they exhibit discontinuous boundary motion. With the exception of the low-angle boundaries all effects are due to the three-dimensional nature of the film. These characteristics have been correlated with grain growth behavior: small grains tend to shrink faster than ideal grains, grains possessing short boundaries tend to stagnate, those undergoing discontinuous boundary motion show irregular behavior. Through these experiments real films have been examined in the context of two-dimensional models. Acta Metallurgica Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.