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Effect of solution pH on the accelerated cracking of nanoporous thin-film glasses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2005

Eric P. Guyer  and
Reinhold H. Dauskardt
Eric P. Guyer
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
Reinhold H. Dauskardt*
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: dauskardt@stanford.edu
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Abstract

Hybrid organic–inorganic nanoporous thin-film glasses are extremely fragile and prone to stress-corrosion cracking in reactive environments. This has limited their integration as ultra low dielectric constant layers in high density integrated circuits. We demonstrate how crack growth is influenced by non-buffered aqueous solutions and show that with increasing pH, crack-growth rates are significantly accelerated. Interestingly, a crack growth regime limited by the transport of hydroxide ions to the crack tip was observed. Existing models commonly used to predict crack growth are shown to over estimate the experimental data by 6 orders of magnitude. We rationalize this behavior in terms of a significant difference in the crack tip solution chemistry as compared to that of the bulk and propose both chemical reaction and transport mechanisms to support this hypothesis.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , March 2005 , pp. 680 - 687
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2005

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