In-Situ Transmission Electron Microscope High Temperature Behavior in Nanocrystalline Platinum Thin Films

In this work, we present a micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)-based in situ transmission electron microscope (TEM) experimental setup for high-temperature uniaxial tensile behavior of nanocrystalline thin films. This setup utilizes self-heating (Ohmic) to raise the temperature of thin films while applying uniaxial tensile loading using electro-thermal actuators. Self-heating is achieved by passing a high-density direct current through the specimen. We carried out a qualitative uniaxial tensile experiment on a 75-nm platinum thin film at 360 K. Temperature is estimated using COMSOL modeling. In this qualitative experiment, we observed initial grain growth followed by formation of edge serrations. We propose that grain boundary sliding coupled with grain