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Publication

First-Principles Study of the Mechanical Properties of Ultra-Thin Films and Complex Gate Stacks

Book - Dissertation

The recent technological progresses in lithography and patterning techniques used in the integration of nanoelectronic devices open the possibility to create complex multilayer stacks and devices, strongly scaled down and whose nanometer scale properties have an unknown impact on the electrical and mechanical performances. Therefore, being able to capture the mechanical properties of nanoscaled layers is of fundamental importance to not only improve the performances of logic and memory electronic devices but also to consolidate descriptive and predictive models to improve their reliability. One main drawback is that nowadays there is no (or limited) physical tools currently able to measure the mechanical properties at the nanometers scales. In addition, these multilayer materials cannot be treated as individual independent layers and their interface properties are expected to become dominant over the bulk ones. The focus of this PhD is to build a modeling link allowing to study fundamental relations between packaging induced stresses (cm scale) and device performance at atomistic scale. The mechanical properties of nano-confined materials should be studied using atomistic simulations (such as density functional theory and molecular mechanics), deriving information on the scaling of Young's Modulus upon confinement of metals, semiconductors and dielectrics. The output generated will then be coupled with finite element modeling techniques to gain the insights needed into the mechanical integrity and reliability of nanoscaled devices.
Publication year:2023
Accessibility:Open