On the Diffusion of Excess Vacancies to Free Surfaces and Voids in Thin Films

Recent investigations have shown that resistivity decay in evaporated gold films originates, in part, from the annihilation of excess vacancies, trapped during film condensation, at a high density (10 15 –10 17 /cm 3 ) of small (<50Å) voids present within the film. This paper presents a theoretical treatment of vacancy diffusion to free surfaces and to voids. The treatment predicts both the observed void growth and resistivity decay in thin films.