Investigation of the temperature dependence in Black’s equation using microscopic electromigration modeling

The long-standing speculation regarding an additional temperature dependence in Black’s equation is addressed. Under the premise that the activation energy measured using Black’s equation, Ea, should be equal to the energy barrier for atomic hopping, we provide evidence for an additional T2 dependence of the failure time. Microscopic modeling provides an explicit connection between the macroscopic model behavior and the microscopic parameters of the model. These results may provide a reliable method for measuring activation energies for self-diffusion in pure metals.