Influence of the Surface Structure and Vibration Mode on the Resistivity of Cu Films

TL;DR

This study investigates how surface structure and vibration modes affect the electrical resistivity of copper films, highlighting the significant role of surface atomic vibrations and suggesting freezing surface vibrations to reduce resistivity.

Contribution

It introduces a computational approach to analyze the impact of surface vibrations and modes on Cu film resistivity, providing insights for practical applications.

Findings

Surface atomic vibrations significantly increase resistivity.

Freezing surface vibrations can reduce surface-induced resistivity.

Different vibration modes have distinct effects on conductivity.

Abstract

The influence of the surface structure and vibration mode on the resistivity of Cu films and the corresponding size effect are investigated. The temperature dependent conductivities of the films with different surface morphologies are calculated by the algorithm based upon the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method and the Green's function technique. The thermal effect is introduced by setting the atomic displacements according to the Gaussian distribution with the mean-square amplitude estimated by the Debye model. The result shows that the surface atomic vibration contributes significantly to the resistivity of the systems. Comparing the conductivities for three different vibration modes, it is suggested that freezing the surface vibration is necessary for practical applications to reduce the resistivity induced by the surface electron-phonon scattering.