Deformation modes of nanostructured thin film under controlled biaxial deformation

International audienceThis paper reports on the mechanical behaviour of nanostructured W/Cu thin films deposited on Kapton® under controlled biaxial loadings thanks to a biaxial testing device developed on DiffAbs beamline at SOLEIL synchrotron (Saint-Aubin, France). In situ tensile tests were carried out combining 2D synchrotron x-ray diffraction (XRD) and digital-image correlation (DIC) techniques. First, the elastic behaviour of the composite metallic film-polymeric substrate was investigated under equi-biaxial and non-equi-biaxial loading conditions. The results show that the strain measurements (in the crystalline film by XRD and the substrate by DIC) match to within 10^-4. This result demonstrates the full transmission of strains in the elastic domain through the film-substrate interface and thus a good adhesion of the thin film to the substrate. The second part of the paper deals with higher strains response under equi-biaxial tensile tests. The elastic limit of the nanostructured W/Cu thin films was determined at the bifurcation point between strains obtained by XRD and DIC. Deformation mechanisms such as strain localisation and film fragmentation are proposed