Residual Stress of Chromium, Magnetic, and Carbon Films

Residual mechanical stresses are measured for ultra thin films, Cr, Co-alloy and carbon and their combinations by means of an optical interferometer. The individual stress is additive. The dependence of the carbon, Cr, and Co-alloy film stresses on film thickness indicates that the residual stress originates from film deposition processes as an interfacial phenomenon. The dependence of stress on the chemical properties of the carbon film is also studied in this paper. Index Terms--carbon, Co-alloy, Cr, Raman spectra for diamond like carbon, residual stress, thin film