Strain Engineering in Thin Films

Abstract

Strain engineering for improving properties of thin films, and hence performance of thin film based devices has drawn significant research interest. It has found technological relevance, especially in flexible devices that have broad coverage for future applications. The flexible devices need to survive mechanical distortion such as bending, twisting and stretching without losing its performance. Transparent devices must retain their transparency despite these operations. Strain engineering has been shown to improve fracture behaviour and tailor optical band gap of the inorganic semiconductor thin films. A brief literature study is presented in order to understand the strain and its effects on thin films.