Combinatorial edge delamination test for thin film adhesion -- Concept, procedure, results

A high-throughput combinatorial approach to edge delamination test is proposed to map the failure of adhesion as a function of both temperature and film thickness in a single step. In this approach, a single specimen of a thin film bonded to a substrate with orthogonal thickness and temperature gradients is subdivided into separate samples. This approach can be adopted to measure the adhesion for films with thickness in the sub-micron range by the addition of an overlayer. Requirements for valid testing results from a mechanistic viewpoint are analyzed using three-dimensional computational fracture mechanics. An initial test result is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach.