Thermo-mechanical solution of film/substrate systems under local thermal load and application to laser lift-off of GaN/sapphire structures

Film/substrate structures may undergo a localized thermal load, which can induce stresses, deformation and defects. In this paper, we present the solutions of temperature and stresses in a film/substrate structure under a local thermal load on the film surface. Then, the generalized Stoney formula, which connects the curvature of deformation and the stress field is obtained. The present solution takes into account the non-uniformity of the temperature field both in the width and thickness directions of the film. The thermo-mechanical solution is applied to the analysis of the temperature distribution, stresses, and damage of a GaN/sapphire system during the laser lift-off (LLO) process. It is shown that the laser with the Gaussian distribution of energy density causes much smaller tensile stresses at the edge of the heated area in the film than the laser with the uniform distribution of energy density, and thus can avoid damage to the GaN films separated from the substrate.