Grain growth in thin Al films during deposition from partially ionized vapor

• The Al films exhibited normal grain growth during deposition from ionized vapor.
• Three kinetic stages of grain growth were observed without strong thickness effect.
• Very high grain growth rates up to 0.16 μm/s and large grain sizes were recorded.
• The grains grow with low effective activation energy of 0.25–0.27 eV.
• Inhibition of grain growth is cumulatively affected by thermal grooves and impurities.

Grain growth in thin Al films during deposition from partially ionized vapor flux with simultaneous self-ion bombardment was studied in this work. The films were deposited at constant ion energy of 940 eV and total specific power of 0.4 W/cm2 while the deposition time t of 6 s to 246 s and the resulting substrate temperature (Ts/Tm of 0.35–0.96) were varied. Thin continuous Al films exhibited normal grain growth through the entire experimental range of deposition time without limitation of grain growth by the film thickness effect. Three kinetic stages of the grain growth were observed within 100 s of deposition time: the first one exhibits very slow grain growth, accelerated grain growth occurs in the second stage and then it rapidly changes to a retardation and stagnation mode in the third stage. Large average grain sizes Dg up to 11.3 μm at film thickness of 1.4 μm and integral grain growth rates up to 0.16 μm/s were observed in this study. The experimental results were evaluated against various mechanisms of inhibition of grain growth. An estimate of the effective activation energy of the grain growth yields a value of 0.27 eV which is lower than that of the bulk Al and much higher than the activation energy of surface self-diffusion on (1 1 1)Al monocrystal. The power law Dg = (k t)0.5 gives good match with experimental results in the initial deposition phase preceding the grain growth retardation, while another model that is based on the grain size dependent pinning force adequately explains the entire grain size dependence on time. It is deemed both ion enhanced film/surface interaction and impurities on one side and thermal grooves on another side contribute to the rapid retardation of the grain grooves commencing the second growth stage.