Measurement of interfacial toughness of metal film wire and polymer membrane through electricity induced buckling method

Measurement of interfacial toughness of a metal film wire and a flexible substrate is a challenging issue for evaluating the interfacial bonding capacity of the film-wire/substrate systems. In this paper, an electricity induced buckling method is proposed to measure the interfacial toughness between a metal film wire and a polymer membrane, which does not use a pre-existing weak interface. This method relies on causing a buckling driven delamination of the metal film wire from the polymer membrane, by inducing a compressive stress due to electrification of the film wire. For a sort of structure formed by a constantan film wire and a polymer membrane, the current density range under which the buckling of the film wire will emerge is obtained from experiments. The average interfacial toughness of one typical sample is measured to be 31.6J/m². According to the buckling topographies under different current densities, the interfacial toughness of the constantan film wire and the polymer substrate is found to vary from 10J/m² to 60J/m². © 2011 Elsevier Inc.