Stress-driven interfacial instability of a bilayer structure: The interaction between free surface and interface

The morphological evolution of strained films is of technological importance to microelectronics and nanotechnology. The morphological instability of a bilayer system is analyzed, consisting of an elastic film and an elastic substrate with a misfit strain on the coherent interface. A kinetic model is derived by considering the morphological fluctuations of different perturbation amplitudes along both the free surface and the interface and the coupling effect between the film and the substrate. The couplings include the misfit strain, surface/interface energy, and surface/interface diffusion, which determine the morphological instability of the system. A quadratic dispersion relationship is established for the growth rate of the longitudinal surface and interfacial perturbations along the free surface and the interface, respectively. The propagation of the surface perturbations is revealed from the free surface to the interface, and the characteristic frequencies are identified for the initiation of the morphological instability.