Mechanism of the Evaporation of Ag Nano-Twinned Films on Si Wafers with Assistance of Ion Beam Bombardment

Ag nanotwinned thin film with a thickness of about 4 m has been evaporated on an 8-inch Si wafer with the assistance of ion beam bombardment. FIB cross-sectional imaging revealed many columnar grains with an average width of about 0.5 m containing numerous parallel Ag nanotwins. The XRD spectrum showed a strong Ag ( The results were consistent with top-view EBSD inverse pole figure analysis showing a very high density of the (111) orientation, 85.21.9%, on the surface of the Si wafer. A modified stress relaxation model is proposed to explain the enhancement of the formation of a high density of nanotwins in the Ag films evaporated with simultaneous ion bombardment.