Integrated Computational Materials, Process and Product Engineering – IC-MPPE 2022

In power semiconductor applications, thin films are of utmost importance in terms of reliability. In order to design such reliable thin films, residual stresses determination and microstructural characterization plays a crucial role. Here, various advanced techniques like FE-EBSD, FESEM-TKD (Transmission Kikuchi diffraction) and high resolution angular EBSD (HR-EBSD) are carried out to perform microstructural characterization qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Particularly HR-EBSD provides novel insights with respect to the strain and stress distribution on the thin film surface as well as on the cross section. In particular knowledge about the evolution of residual stresses in the grain and along the grain boundaries are gained. The obtained HR-EBSD results are correlated with residual stress profile measurements performed along the thickness of the thin films. For the latter the ion layer removal method with a machine learning prediction model is used. The presented workflow shall help to design improved thin films for future industrial applications.

Acknowledgement:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support under the scope of the COMET program within the K2 Center “Integrated Computational Material, Process and Product Engineering (IC-MPPE)” (Project No: P2.12 and P1.12). This program is supported by the Austrian Federal Ministries for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK) and for Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW), represented by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), and the federal states of Styria, Upper Austria and Tyrol.