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Cooling Rate Dependent Ellipsometry Measurements to Determine the Dynamics of Thin Glassy Films
Published on: January 26, 2016
Size- and temperature-dependent Young's modulus and size-dependent thermal expansion coefficient of thin films
Xiao-Ye Zhou1, Bao-Ling Huang, Tong-Yi Zhang
1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
Abstract:
Nanomaterials possess a high surface/volume ratio and surfaces play an essential role in size-dependent material properties. In the present study, nanometer-thick thin films were taken as an ideal system to investigate the surface-induced size- and temperature-dependent Young's modulus and size-dependent thermal expansion coefficient. The surface eigenstress model was further developed with the consideration of thermal expansion, leading to analytic formulas of size- and temperature-dependent Young's modulus, and size-dependent thermal expansion coefficient of thin films. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on face-centered cubic (fcc) Ag, Cu, and Ni(001) thin films were conducted at temperatures ranging from 300 K to 600 K. The MD simulation results are perfectly consistent with the theoretical predictions, thereby verifying the theoretical approach. The newly developed surface eigenstress model will be able to attack similar problems in other types of nanomaterials.
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