Crystallographic Texture in Ceramics and Metals

Preferred crystallographic orientation, or texture, occurs almost universally, both in natural and man-made systems. Many components and devices in electronic and magnetic systems are fabricated from materials that have crystallographic texture. With the rapidly increasing use of thin film technology, where sharp axisymmetric crystallographic texture normal to the film plane is frequently observed, the occurrence and impact of texture are rising. Thin film applications in which the texture of the material plays a key role in determining properties and performance are broad: complex oxides in random access memory devices, ZnO thin film resonators for cell phone applications, metallic alloys in magnetic recording media, and Al and Cu interconnects in integrated circuits are but a few examples. Texture is established during the synthesis or post-synthesis heat treatment of a material and thus has a strong dependence upon processing history. Accurate measurement of texture is not simple and a variety of tools and approaches are being actively employed in texture studies. X-ray, neutron and electron diffraction based techniques are practiced around the world at varying levels of complexity with regard to equipment and analysis methods. Despite the well-documented existence of these varied approaches, many reported texture measurements on electronic materials are based solely on the relative intensities of conventional θ-2θ x-ray diffraction peaks, which typically yield inaccurate results. NIST has developed quantitative texture measurement techniques that employ equipment commonly available in most industrial and academic settings. A number of examples of texture measurement in ceramic and metal systems will be presented, taken from the historical development and application of these techniques at NIST over the past 7 years.