Dynamic asymmetric strain imprinted into substrates by an oxide thin film
Abstract
In film-substrate systems, the substrate role is often considered to be limited to providing static mechanical constraints. Dynamic film-substrate interactions when a structural change in the film modifies the substrate are generally disregarded. Using combined x-ray and electron microscopies, we observed that an electrically induced filament in a vanadium dioxide film created strong asymmetric strain in an underlying sapphire substrate. This asymmetric substrate strain fed back into the film and defined the filament expansion direction, revealing the importance of film-substrate dynamic interactions in determining film functionality. Furthermore, the strain imprint propagated at least tens of micrometers deep into the substrate, exceeding the film thickness by more than 200-fold, potentially enabling substrate functionalization as an active mechanical coupling media in three-dimensional integrated microelectronic architectures.
Article Details
Journal Info
Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Authors (19)
Elliot Kisiel
Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Alexandre Pofelski
Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA.
Pavel Salev
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA.
Erbin Qiu
Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Spencer Reisbick
Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA.
Chuhang Liu
Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA.
Andreas Glatz
Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA.
Ishwor Poudyal
X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA.
Wei He
Rourav Basak
Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Kaan Alp Yay
Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Junjie Li
Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Umeshkumar Patel
X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA.
Zhan Zhang
Arndt Last
Institute of Microstructure Technology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.
Yimei Zhu
Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA.
Ivan K. Schuller
Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Zahir Islam
X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA.
Alex Frano
Physics Department, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.