An analysis of disorder in thin silicon oxide coatings

We analyze theoretically and experimentally the influence of disorder in th in brittle coatings on their fragmentation kinetics. It turns out that in l inear bond-network models the mean fragment length [L] scales with the appl ied strain epsilon, i.e. [L] proportional to epsilon(-alpha), with alpha de pending on the degree of disorder in the coating. Experimentally we monitor the fragmentation of thin silicon oxide coatings. The analysis of the frag mentation kinetics reveals that (L) proportional to epsilon(-alpha) is well fulfilled and that a ranges from 1/3 to 1/2, being in very good agreement with the theory.