Thesis (Ph.D.)--Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Realff, Mary L.; Committee Member: Graham, Samuel; Committee Member: Jacob, Karl I.; Committee Member: May, Gary; Committee Member: Shofner, Meisha.

The objective of the current research was to contribute to the area of mechanics of composite polymeric materials. This objective was reached by establishing a quantitative assessment of the fatigue strength and evolution of mechanical property changes during fatigue loading of nanocomposite fibers and films. Both experimental testing and mathematical modeling were used to gain a fundamental understanding of the fatigue behavior and material changes that occurred during fatigue loading. In addition, the objective of the study was to gain a qualitative and fundamental understanding of the failure mechanisms that occurred between the nanoagent and matrix in nanocomposite fibers. This objective was accomplished by examining scanning electron microscopy (SEM) fractographs. The results of this research can be used to better understand the behavior of nanocomposite materials in applications where degradation due to fatigue and instability of the composite under loading conditions may be a concern. These applications are typically encountered in automotive, aerospace, and civil engineering applications where fatigue and/or fracture are primary factors that contribute to failure.

Driven by the need for increase in system¡¯s functionality and decrease in the feature size, International Technology Roadmap for Semi-conductors has predicted that integrated chip packages will have interconnections with I/O pitch of 90 nm by the year 2018. Lead-based solder materials that have been used for many decades will not be able to satisfy the thermal mechanical requirements of these fines pitch packages. Of all the known interconnect technologies, nanostructured copper interconnects are the most promising for meeting the high performance requirements of next generation devices. However, there is a need to understand their material properties, deformation mechanisms and microstructural stability. The goal of this research is to study the mechanical strength and fatigue behavior of nanocrystalline copper using atomistic simulations and to evaluate their performance as nanostructured interconnect materials. The results from the crack growth analysis indicate that nanocrystalline copper is a suitable candidate for ultra-fine pitch interconnects applications. This study has also predicts that crack growth is a relatively small portion of the total fatigue life of interconnects under LCF conditions. The simulations result conducted on the single crystal copper nano-rods show that its main deformation mechanism is the nucleation of dislocations. In the case of nanocrystalline copper, material properties such as elastic modulus and yield strength have been found to be dependent on the grain size. Furthermore, it has been shown that there is competition between the dislocation activity and grain boundary sliding as the main deformation mode This research has shown that stress induced grain coarsening is the main reason for loss of mechanical performance of nanocrystalline copper during cyclic loading. Further, the simulation results have also shown that grain growth during fatigue loading is assisted by the dislocation activity and grain boundary migration. A fatigue model for nanostructured interconnects has been developed in this research using the above observations Lastly, simulations results have shown that addition of the antimony into nanocrystalline copper will not only increase the microstructure stability, it will also increase its strength.