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Controlling the shape of Al/Ni multilayer foils using variations in stress

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Abstract

Al/Ni multilayer foils were sputter-deposited with an in-plane residual stress state that was altered midway through the thickness of the foils by changing the bilayer spacing. The difference in stress between the top and bottom halves of the foil caused these systems to curl when they were removed from their substrates. As predicted, the radius of curvature increased linearly as the difference in stress between the upper and lower halves decreased and as foil thickness increased, demonstrating the ability to fabricate layered foils with specific curvatures. Unexpectedly, however, the radii of curvature of all the free-standing foils decreased with time after removal from their substrates, suggesting that a time-dependent relaxation mechanism was operating. An explanation based on stress driven, time-dependent deformation is offered to explain the relaxation, and an elasticity-based curvature model is presented for comparison with the measured steady state curvatures.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (grant B562528) and from the Office of Naval Research (grant N00014-07-1-0740). The authors also acknowledge J. Gryzb for assistance with curvature and profilometry measurements and M. Koontz for assistance with SEM imaging.

Professor Weihs is a founder of a company called Reactive Nanotechnologies, Inc. (RNT), which has licensed technologies developed at the Johns Hopkins University (described in this article). The terms of this arrangement are being managed by the Johns Hopkins University in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, 21218, USA

    Robert Knepper, Gregory Fritz & Timothy P. Weihs

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  1. Robert Knepper
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  2. Gregory Fritz
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  3. Timothy P. Weihs
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Correspondence to Timothy P. Weihs.

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Knepper, R., Fritz, G. & Weihs, T.P. Controlling the shape of Al/Ni multilayer foils using variations in stress. Journal of Materials Research 23, 2009–2016 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1557/JMR.2008.0247

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