Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
The elastic behavior of gold thin films deposited onto Kapton substrate has been studied using in-situ tensile tester in a four-circle goniometer at a synchrotron beam line (LURE facility, France). Knowing the stress tensor in the film, the strong {111} fibre texture was taken into account using the Crystallite Group Method (CGM). CGM strain analysis allows predicting a non linear relationship between strain and sin2 Ψ obtained for the thin films due to the strong anisotropy of gold. In contrast, the average of strains in longitudinal and transversal directions varies linearly with sin2 Ψ. The evolution of the slope of these curves as a function of the applied stresses in the film allowed determining the single-crystal elastic constant s44 of thin gold films.