Measurement of stress gradients generated by electromigration

Abstract
Stress gradients generated by electromigration in aluminum films were measured at 340 °C. The stresses were measured by combining x‐ray topography to record the effects of the film stress and scanning electron microscopy to measure the information on the topographs. At the electromigration threshold the stress gradients of 200‐μm‐long stripes are 6×1010 dyn/cm3, corresponding to an effective charge of z*=−1.2.