Deformation behavior of thin copper films on deformable substrates Original Research Article

The role of strain hardening for the deformation of thin Cu films was investigated quantitatively by conducting specialized tensile testing allowing the simultaneous characterization of the film stress and the dislocation density as a function of plastic strain. The stress–strain behavior was studied as a function of microstructural parameters of the films, such as film thickness (0.4–3.2 μm), grain size and texture. It was found that the stress–strain behavior can be divided into three regimes, i.e. elastic, plastic with strong strain hardening and plastic with weak hardening. The flow stresses and the hardening rate increase with decreasing film thickness and/or grain size, and are about two times higher in (111)-grains compared to the (100)-grains. These effects will be discussed in the light of existing models for plastic deformation of thin films or fine grained metals.