IMX Colloquium - Morphological Stability of Thin Films and Micro/Nano-Structures

Thin films and micro-/nano-structures, such as patterned metal wire-like conductors, are inherently unstable and will undergo morphological evolution driven by surface energy minimization.  This results in the break-up of purpose-built structures into islands.  This evolution, which occurs while the material remains solid, is referred to as solid-state dewetting (SSD) or agglomeration. Lithographically defined thin film micro-/nano-structures made from both polycrystalline and single crystal films have been used to investigate the detailed mechanisms that promote thermal stability or guide SSD to produce controlled structures. Crystalline anisotropy has been shown to have an especially strong effect on morphological evolution, and a new simulation method that accounts for anisotropy has been developed that successfully reproduces phenomenology observed in experiments.

Bio: Professor Thompson is the Stavros Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT . He received an S.B. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University, and joined the MIT faculty in 1983.  He was the director of MIT’s Materials Processing Center from 2008 to 2017, and director of MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory from 2017 to 2023. Professor Thompson also served in leadership positions in several of MIT’s international programs and is a Fellow and past‐president of the Materials Research Society. His research interests focus on the processing of thin films and nanostructures for applications in microelectronic, microelectromechanical and microelectrochemical systems. Current activities focus on the reliability of IC interconnects, GaN‐based devices, and heterogeneously integrated microsystems, as well as general kinetic mechanisms that control the evolution of internal defects and morphology of thin films and micro‐/nano‐scale structures.