Impact of a strong temperature gradient on grain growth in films

Abstract

The migration of grain boundaries and, therewith, the phenomenon of grain growth depend strongly on the annealing temperature. Generally, higher temperatures are associated with higher mobilities of the boundaries and therewith faster microstructural coarsening. In the present study, the influence of a strong temperature gradient on grain growth in thin films is investigated. To that aim, a modified three-dimensional Potts model algorithm is employed, where the annealing temperature changes with the thickness of the sample taking grain boundarymobility and energy into account.The resulting drag effect has serious consequences for the temporal and spatial evolution of the grainmicrostructure.