Early Stage Growth Structure and Stress Relaxation of CoCrPt Thin Films on Spherically Modulated Polymer Surface

Abstract

Combined study of in-situ stress measurements and atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealed drastic stress relaxation in the CoCrPt and PS(styrene)-PVP(vinyl pyridine) polymer hybrid structure that was closely related to the growth structure of the film. We have observed not only no large initial growth stress at the initial stages of film growth but also twice smaller stress in magnitude with opposite sign in the CoCrPt/PS-PVP/Si sample. The microstructural studies using AFM at the various film growth stages revealed that the film growth structure plays an important role in the stress relaxation mechanism of CoCrPt films on a corrugated polymer surface.