Thermal stress concentration points and stress mutations in nano-multilayer film structures

Abstract In the multilayer film-substrate system, thermal stress concentration and stress mutations cause film buckling, delamination and cracking, leading to device failure. In this paper, we investigated a multilayer film system composed of a substrate and three film layers. The thermal stress distribution inside the structure was calculated by the finite element method, revealing significant thermal stress differences between the layers. This is mainly due to the mismatch of the coefficient of thermal expansion between materials. Different materials respond differently to changes in external temperature, leading to compression between layers. There are obvious thermal stress concentration points at the corners of the base layer and the transition layer, which is due to the sudden change of the shape at the geometric section of the structure, resulting in a sudden increase in local stress. To address this issue, we chamfered the substrate and added an intermediate layer between the substrate and the transition layer to assess whether these modifications could reduce or eliminate the thermal stress concentration points and extend the service life of the multilayer structure. The results indicate that chamfering and adding the intermediate layer effectively reduce stress discontinuities and mitigate thermal stress concentration points, thereby improving interlayer bonding strength.