Peculiarities of grain growth in silver films

Grain growth in thin sliver films is studied experimentally. It is shown for the first time that notable grain growth is preceded by an incubation stage in which a film’s microstructure may be considered stable since the rate of grain growth is relatively low. The length of the incubation stage depends on the initial gran size and annealing temperature. The results are in agreement with the view that the effect of vacancy generation accompanying grain growth is an important factor inhibiting the latter.