Postdeposition Resistance Relaxation of Semicontinuous Metal Films

Semicontinuous niobium and silver films were made in an ultra high vacuum(UHV) chamber and in situ DC resistance measurements were performed.Interrupting the deposition,the immediate aging phenomenon (relaxation) of the sample resistance was investigated in a time scale of about 10 minutes.Resistance increase and decrease were observed for niobium and silver samples respectively.The intensity of the relaxation is sensitive to substrate temperature and film thickness.The edge diffusion and coalescence of islands due to thermomigration of the metal atoms are probably responsible for the resistance relaxation.