Experiments and Simulations Track Crack Propagation in Silicon Wafers
FEB 01, 1999
By careful design, researchers have devised a method by which observations and simulations of brittle fracture can be directly compared.
DOI: 10.1063/1.882518
Modeling a piece of silicon as it cracks and breaks is doubly difficult. Not only are huge numbers of atoms involved, but the whole process comes down to the rapid snapping of complicated covalent bonds. Compounding the difficulty, a fully prescriptive quantum mechanical treatment of crack propagation in bulk material, though possible in principle, will remain for some time beyond the number‐crunching power of even the largest supercomputers.
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© 1999 American Institute of Physics
