Grain growth and thermal stability of Ag thin films

The processes of grain growth and agglomeration into separate islands in sputtered Ag thin films subjected to thermal treatment are studied by scanning probe microscopy. Using an Arrhenius relation between the grain growth constant and annealing temperature, activation energy (0.40 eV) for the grain growth process is estimated. Close value (0.38 eV) is found for activation energy for the mass transport mechanism governing the film islanding. This indicates that surface diffusion is a key mass transport mechanism controlling plastic deformation of Ag thin films under annealing.