Due to current developments in jet engine design, the acoustic performance of conventional acoustic liners needs to be improved with respect to lower frequency spectrums and broadband absorption. In this context, the present study aimed to determine the viscoelastic material properties of a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) film for targeted application in novel acoustic liners with integrated film material for enhanced noise reduction. Therefore, a dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) was performed to determine these viscoelastic material properties. Based on the acquired data, the time-temperature shift (TTS) was applied to obtain the material’s temperature- and frequency-dependent mechanical properties. In this regard, the William-Landel-Ferry (WLF) method and an alternative polynomial approach determining the shift factors were investigated and compared. Furthermore, a generalized Maxwell model—so-called Prony-series—with and without pre-smoothing utilizing of a fractional rheological model was applied to approximate the measured storage and loss modulus and to provide a material model that can be used in finite element analyses. Finally, the results were discussed concerning the application of the films in acoustic liners under the conditions of a standard flight cycle and the applied loads. The present investigations thus provide a method for characterizing polymer materials, approximating their mechanical behavior for vibration applications at different ambient temperatures and enabling the identification of their operational limits during the application in acoustic liners.
Interface engineering for the TaN/Ta barrier film deposition process to control Ta-crystal growth
(2013)
As a consequence of device shrinking the resistivity of the widely used TaN/Ta double barrier layer becomes an increasingly important parameter for device speed beyond the 32 nm technology node. In this study we describe the optimization of the deposition of TaN/Ta stacks in such a way that tantalum nitride layer thickness is minimized and tantalum grows in the favorable conducting alpha-phase. In the first part of the study we usedin situ ARXPS to investigate the growth of different tantalum nitride layers on SiO2 and SiOCH as a function of deposition time, nitrogen flow and deposition power. In the second part we analyzed the crystalline phase of a 20 nm thick tantalum layer deposited on top of the same series of tantalum nitride layers characterized in the growth study. The main findings are the appearance of tan-talum carbide and tantalum silicide as interface species for the deposition on SiOCH and only tantalum silicide for the deposition on SiO2. We found that alpha-tantalum grows preferably on tantalum carbide and nitrogen rich intermediate layers whereas silicide at the interface promotes the growth of beta-tantalum. To
verify these findings we studied two additional modifications of the interface. A lower bias power for a deposition of tantalum nitride on SiO2 was used to confirm the role of tantalum silicide and a thermal
treatment of a thin tantalum layer on SiOCH was applied to confirm the role of tantalum carbide. Finally, the contact resistance in via chains on patterned wafers for four selected processes showed the same trends as the sheet resistance of the corresponding barrier films on blanket wafer experiments.