Residual Stresses in Cu/Ni Multilayer Thin Films Measured Using the Sin²ψ Method

Abstract

Residual stresses in multilayer thin films are of substantial importance to the service life of advanced engineering systems. In this investigation, the residual stresses in magnetron sputtered Cu/Ni multilayer thin films were characterized using x-ray diffraction (XRD) and the sin²ψ method. The influence of layer thickness on residual stress was explored for films with alternating Ni and Cu layers with equal layer thicknesses ranging from 10 nm to 100 nm. To address peak broadening and overlapping, the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm were employed, and the peak position was determined using the Center of Gravity (CoG) method. Results showed tensile residual stress in both the Cu and Ni layers and a prominent layer thickness dependence. The stress in the Ni layers increased from roughly 880 MPa to 1550 MPa with decreasing layer thickness from 100 nm to 10 nm. In the Cu layers, the stress remained relatively constant at ~250 MPa and then substantially decreased for the 10 nm thickness. The findings confirm that the XRD-based approach can be applied for residual stress measurement in nanoscale multilayer thin films, provided that peak broadening and overlapping issues are addressed. Furthermore, the residual stress in metal multilayers is strongly dependent on layer thickness.