[PO-I2] Poster Session 2

[P2-69] Topological evolution of the microstructures of thin films during grain growth

^○Ahu Oencue¹, Thorsten Halle², Dana Zoellner³ (1.Institute of Experimental Physics, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany, 2.Institute of Materials and Joining Technology, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany, 3.B CUBE Center for Molecular Bioengineering, TU Dresden, Germany)

Historically, metallography has been the two-dimensional characterization of materials microstructures by optical microscopy. Consequential problems have long been known: A two-dimensional section through a three-dimensional object gives us only a very poor idea about size and form of the object. The same holds for the complex grain boundary networks of various kinds of polycrystalline materials. Therefore, many attempts have been made to gain three-dimensional information experimentally. Nevertheless, in simulations and analytical theories thin films are commonly still treated as two-dimensional objects making comparisons with three-dimensional experimental data rather hard.

In the present work, based on experimental measurements, grain growth in metallic thin films is investigated in detail by three-dimensional Monte Carlo Potts model simulations focusing particularly on the transition from bulk-like growth to columnar microstructures. Changes not only in average growth behaviour from a linear increase of the average grain area with annealing time to near-stagnation, but particularly temporal changes in local topology and individual growth kinetics, e.g., in terms of the Lewis-law as well as of the von Neumann-Mullins-law are discussed.