Kinetic studies of dimensional aspects in thin film grain growth

It has been shown that grain growth in succinonitrile thin films is accurat ely described by the Mullins-Von Neumann grain growth law. However, there i s a small fraction of grains showing significant departures from ideal beha vior (Palmer et al., Scripta metall. mater., 1994. 30, 633; Palmer et al., Metall. Mater. Trans. A, 1995, 26A, 1061). These grains are examined to see if they show departures from ideal behavior (the Uniform Boundary Model). It has been found that the vast majority of this small fraction of grains s hows one of four distinct characteristics: they possess low-angle boundarie s, they are small, they possess short boundaries, or they exhibit discontin uous boundary motion. With the exception of the low-angle boundaries all ef fects are due to the three-dimensional nature of the film. These characteri stics have been correlated with grain growth behavior: small grains tend to shrink faster than ideal grains, grains possessing short boundaries tend t o stagnate, those undergoing discontinuous boundary motion show irregular b ehavior. Through these experiments real films have been examined in the con text of two-dimensional models. Acta Metallurgica Inc. Published by Elsevie r Science Ltd.