2015 12th International Conference on Electrical Engineering, Computing Science and Automatic Control (CCE), Mexico, City.

Mexico. October 28-30, 2015.

The Physical Properties of Nanomaterials: a

Challenge in Materials Science
A. I. Oliva, J. M. Lugo
Departamento de Fsica Aplicada
Centro de Investigacin y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Unidad Mrida
A.P. 73-Cordemex, 97310, Mrida Yucatn Mxico
e-mail: oliva@mda.cinvestav.mx
Abstract In this work, some initial efforts to determine the
physical properties of metallic films with thickness values below
200 nm are described. The proposed methodologies to measure
the temperature coefficient of resistance, the specific heat,
thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity values of Au, Al, and
Cu films as such as the elastic modulus of metallic nano-alloys
are discussed. The thermal properties were obtained from the
metallic films deposited from 20 to 200 nm-thickness on glass
substrates, which are heated with an electrical pulse during some
microseconds. The rate of heating captured during this short
time permits to estimate the thermal properties of exclusively the
metallic film without affectation of the substrate. On the other
hand, the elastic module of metallic thin films, estimated by
subtracting the effect of the previously characterized polymeric
substrates, was obtained from the stress-strain curves. Obtained
values for the thermal and mechanical properties show a
decrease or increase behavior with the thickness value, very
different than for their corresponding bulk values.

values of some nanometers [6]. Additionally, thermal,

electrical, mechanical, and optical properties required to be
revised for the different materials according to their application
for nanotechnology. Thus, new methodologies accomplished
with new analytical models can be useful to obtain the values
of the different physical properties of the materials as a
function of the thickness value. In this work, we resume some
methodologies for obtaining the electrical properties
(temperature coefficient of resistance r), thermal properties
(specific heat Cpf, thermal diffusivity Df, and thermal
conductivity kf), and mechanical properties (elastic modulus E,
and the thermal expansion coefficient t) of pure metallic films
of Au, Al and Cu as initial efforts to obtain these properties in
the nano-thickness range.

Keywordsnanomaterials; physical properties; nano-thickness.

A. Thermoelectrical properties.
The temperature coefficient of resistance r is determined
if changes of electrical resistance R are simultaneously
measured with the changes of temperature T, such that the r
value can be measured trough the relation:

I. INTRODUCTION
A new challenge in materials science appears as a result of
the nano-dimension. The physical properties of the materials
when the thickness value is below 100 nm are quite different
than their corresponding value in bulk. Additionally, new
methodologies for measuring them require to be proposed
given the scarce information in this range of small thickness.
Isolated efforts are published in the scientific literature, but no
standards methods have been proposed to measure the different
physical properties of materials as a function of the nanothickness.
First efforts to understand the higher values of the electrical
resistivity measured in metallic films at these low dimensions
were proposed by Thomson [1], Fuchs-Sondheimer [2,3] and
Mayadas-Shatzkes [4, 5]. Different analytical models and
further experimental data explained the higher electrical
resistivity values of Au, Al and Cu films. Thus, the old known
intrinsic value of this property is actually a dependence of the
nano-thickness value. For semiconductor films, the quantum
confinement effect explained the higher values on the bandgap
energy values when the films are prepared with thickness

978-1-4673-7839-0/15/$31.00 2015 IEEE

II. PROPOSED METHODOLOGIES FOR THERMOPHYSCIS

PROPERTIES DETERMINATION OF THIN FILMS

r =

R
R0 T

(1)

Thus, the metallic film deposited with a certain nanothickness on a glass substrate is heated by Joule effect through
two copper electrodes in order to obtain the changes of
resistance. A micro-thermocouple K-type is used to measure
the temperature at steady state condition.
B. Thermal properties.
The specific heat Cpf, the thermal diffusivity Df, and the
thermal conductivity kf are measured through the electrical
micropulses methodology. Here, an electrical pulse with
duration of some microseconds (10 to 400 s) is applied on the
metallic film/substrate system with known thickness for
heating. The thermal response with time (T/t) during this
short time permits to capture the heating data of only the film

2015 12th International Conference on Electrical Engineering, Computing Science and Automatic Control (CCE), Mexico, City.
Mexico. October 28-30, 2015.

such that substrate is not thermally affected. In these

conditions, the Cpf value is obtained by the relation:
C pf =

Q
T
m
t

(2)

Where Q=VI is the power applied on the film and m is the

mass of film. On the other hand, the thermal diffusivity Df can
be obtained from the same (T/t) plot obtained for the Cpf
determination. For this, we need to solve the one-dimensional
heat equation in the transitory regime, which include the
thermal diffusivity Df, in order to obtain the first stages of
heating of the film:

1 T 2T
=
D f t y 2

(3)

Considering the film length L with time t during the

application of the electrical pulse (tc), the solution of the
differential equation can be expressed in a simplified form as:

T ( L, t ) = T0 exp ( 2 D f t )

(4)

Where 2 is the constant of separation defined as:

2 =
D f T0

T
tc Ld f

(5)

Df

Equation (4) gives the temperature profile of the film of

length L during the transitory regime. Note that thermal
diffusivity Df of the film value is contained into Eq. (4), but
this equation needs to be carefully used, given that produces
infinitely high temperature with the time increases infinitely.
Assuming that Eq. (4) is valid only in the transitory regime,
the thermal profile can be expressed as:

T ftr ( t ) = T ( L, t ) T0

(6)

The changes of temperature of the metallic film Tftr=T-T0

of Eq. (6) result useful for adjusting the best Df value with the
measured T/t values obtained as a consequence of the
micro-pulse application on the different films. More detailed
explanation can be found in Ref. [7]. Once the Cpf and Df
values are obtained, the thermal conductivity kf value of the
films can be estimated from the Eq. (7), where is the density
of the metallic film:

k f = D f C pf

978-1-4673-7839-0/15/$31.00 2015 IEEE

(7)

C. Mechanical properties.
The elastic modulus E of the thin films is estimated from
elongations obtained from a film/substrate system. The
difference between the stressstrain (-) curve of a polymeric
substrate and the similar curve for a film/polymeric substrate
give the E value of the film through the equation:

( ) =

1
Ftot ( ) Fsub ( )
d f wf

(8)

Where df and wf are the thickness and width of the film,

and F the applied force on film/substrate system (Ftot ()) and
substrate (Fsub ()). The slope of the plot of the unitary
elongation (=L/L0) against the estimated stress value, give
us the elastic modulus of the film. This methodology has been
used by other authors [8, 9] for studying nano-alloys.
III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
The metallic thin films (5.7x3.5 mm2) of Au, Al and Cu
were deposited by thermal free-evaporation method on glass or
Kapton substrates. The materials sources were of 99.999%
purity. The thickness of films were measured in situ with a
quartz-crystal sensor and monitored with a Maxtek 400
controller. For measurement of r value, we used an HP-6643
power supply, an HP-3456A voltmeter and a K-type
microthermocouple (KK-36363) as sensor temperature. For
other thermal properties, the electrical micro-pulse
methodology was applied were an electrical pulse of power Po
and some microseconds of duration was applied on the films
through two small copper electrodes glued on each extreme
with silver conductive paint to produce an increase of
temperature by Joule effect. The slope of the rate of heating
was used to determine some thermal properties (Cpf, Df, and kf).
The electronic system used for applying the micro-pulses was
reported before [10]. The elastic modulus E was determined
with a universal testing machine of proper design for thin
metallic films [11].
IV. RESULTS
A. The temperature coefficient of resistance (r) values.
The estimation of the r values of the thin metallic films
were verified by two modes: by using the Tellier and Tosser
(T-T) model [12] and by our method of experimentation. The
T-T model takes into account the F-S and the M-S models of
the electrical resistivity.
Figure 1 shows the r/bulk ratio as a function of the film
thickness and mean free path ratio df/ as obtained by the T-T
model. As observed, the r value reduces with the film
thickness value and the grain boundary reflection coefficient
(()), being , the grain diameter. This plot permits to
interpolate the r value of the different film thickness
analytically.

2015 12th International Conference on Electrical Engineering, Computing Science and Automatic Control (CCE), Mexico, City.
Mexico. October 28-30, 2015.

Fig. 1. The r/bulk ratio as estimated by the T-T model. The p parameter is
the fraction of scattered electrons at surfaces.

In order to experimentally verify the r values for the

different metallic films, we used Eq. (1) with different
electrical currents applied on each metallic film, meanwhile
the voltages are captured from which, the corresponding
electrical resistance was estimated. The increase of
temperature was measured on each film with the small K-type
thermocouple. Figure 2 shows the measured r values for Au,
Al and Cu films for the range of thickness from 20 to 200 nm.
A difference of 4% between the analytical and the
experimental r values was obtained, showing a good
agreement between both methods.
B. The specific heat (Cpf) values.
Figure 3 shows the obtained Cpf values of the Au, Al and
Cu films measured in this work. An increase of this parameter
is always observed when the film thickness is reduced, having
higher values for lower thickness. A comparison with the
scarce results published in the literature shows good
agreement with our results.

Fig. 3. Values of the specific heat obtained for: a) Au, b) Al, and c) Cu films.

C. The diffusivity (Df) values.

Fig. 2. The experimental r values measured for the Au, Al and Cu films.

978-1-4673-7839-0/15/$31.00 2015 IEEE

Figure 4 shows the thermal diffusivity Df values estimated

for the Au, Al and Cu films for the 20 to 200 nm range.
Reduced Df values were obtained when the film thickness is

2015 12th International Conference on Electrical Engineering, Computing Science and Automatic Control (CCE), Mexico, City.
Mexico. October 28-30, 2015.

reduced, such that bulk value was obtained at 100 nm for Au

and Al films.

Fig. 5. Thermal conductivity kf values as obtained for: a) Au and Al, b) Cu

films.
Fig. 4. Thermal diffusivity Df values as obtained for: a) Au and Al, b) Cu
films.

For the Cu films, the diffusivity bulk value was not

reached maybe by the formed oxide at ambient temperature
during measurements. however, the films showed a similar
increasing tendency with thickness.

E. The elastic modulus (E) values.

Thermally diffused AlCu alloys with different thicknesses
were deposited on polymeric Kapton substrates for easy
elongation. The force-strain curves were obtained with our
designed universal testing machine (Fig. 6). From these curves
and knowing the force-strain curve for only the Kapton, we
obtained by subtraction (Eq. 8), the stress (F/A) vs strain curves
which slope gives the elastic modulus.

D. The thermal conductivity (kf) values.

By using Eq. (7), the kf values were determined for Au, Al
and Cu films with thicknesses in the range from 20 to 200 nm
at room conditions. A similar increasing behavior as Df
parameter when the thickness increases is observed. However,
the thermal conductivity bulk value is reached at 80 nm
thickness for Au and Al films; while that for Cu films is
reached at 200 nm. Previous reported values of this parameter
but with other methods are also compared with good
agreement. However, scarce information for the different
physical properties was found for this range of thickness.

Fig. 6. Force strain curves obtained with the universal testing machine for
different thicknesses of the AlCu alloys.

978-1-4673-7839-0/15/$31.00 2015 IEEE

2015 12th International Conference on Electrical Engineering, Computing Science and Automatic Control (CCE), Mexico, City.
Mexico. October 28-30, 2015.

Fig. 7. Values of the elastic modulus obtained for different thicknesses of the
AlCu alloys.

Figure 7 shows the values of the elastic modulus E of the

different thicknesses of the metallic AuCu alloys. An increase
with the alloys-thickness reduction was observed. The E value
of the alloys was found between the individual Cu and Al
elastic modulus.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Some efforts realized for physical properties determination
at nano-dimensional thickness was discussed. Proposed
methodologies to determine some thermal and mechanical
properties are proposed and discussed. The temperature
coefficient of resistance r, the specific heat Cpf, the thermal
diffusivity Df, and the thermal conductivity kf were reported
for Au, Al and Cu for thicknesses between 20 to 200 nm. The
elastic modulus of AlCu alloys with thickness at nanometer
scale is also discussed. Results of these measured properties
show that physical properties are quite different than the
reported bulk values. Thus, it is necessary to propose and
develop new methodologies and methods to determine the
different properties at nanoscale. To know and determine the
values of the physical properties of materials (metals,
semiconductors and insulators) is actually a challenge in
materials science.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors thank to J.E. Corona and M. Romero for their
technical help.
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Mexico. October 28-30, 2015.

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