doi: 10.7763/IJAPM.2012.V2.72
Electromigration: A Unique Tool for Microstructure Engineering in Metal Films
S. M. Mohanasundaram
1
,
,
- 1 Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
- 2 Centre for Nano Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India.
Abstract
Electromigration has long been studied in the context of interconnect reliability in integrated circuits. It has also been used to create metal electrodes with nanogaps for molecular electronics. Here we report a new application of electromigration as a tool for locally engineering the microstructure of thin metal films. By controlling the level of disorder in the system, electromigration enables us to modify the electrical and electromechanical properties of the film. We have developed and implemented a feedback control algorithm for high precision control of the electromigration process. We have demonstrated the usefulness of the technique by using it to enhance the strain sensitivity of a metal based piezoresistive transducer. This enhancement can be attributed to the change in microstructure of the film which in turn changes the electronic transport mechanism.
Keywords
- Electromigration
- microstructure
- feedbackcontrol
- piezoresistance
How to Cite
S. M. Mohanasundaram, Rudra Pratap, and Arindam Ghosh, "Electromigration: A Unique Tool for Microstructure Engineering in Metal Films," International Journal of Applied Physics and Mathematics, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 146-148, 2012. https://doi.org/ 10.7763/IJAPM.2012.V2.72
Copyright & License
Copyright © 2012 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).