Abstract
Nanoscale electronic devices face critical reliability challenges under extreme operating conditions, where electromigration—atomic motion driven by high density current—progressively degrades metallic components. Conventional wisdom maintains that electron wind force drives atomic migration along electron flow direction in metallic interconnects. However, using an integrated in situ nanofabrication-electropulsing approach, we reveal an anomalous electromigration phenomenon in next-generation transition metal nano-interconnects at atomic scale, where surface atoms migrate against the direction of electron flow. This upwind migration demonstrates universality across different refractory nano-interconnects including tungsten and molybdenum. First-principles calculations attribute this reversal to the predominance of direct forces over electron wind forces in materials with complex electronic structures. Our findings challenge the existing paradigm of electromigration and hold great implications for optimizing the reliability of next-generation electronic interconnections toward extreme process.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available within this article and its Supporting Information. Additional data is available from the corresponding authors upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LR24E010002), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFA1200201), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U21A2051) and the Joint Fund of Henan Province Science and Technology R&D Program (225200810058).
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J.W.W. proposed the idea, directed the project and designed the experiments. Y.H. conducted the experiments and analyzed the data. T.D. performed the DFT calculations. Y.H. and J.W.W. wrote and revised the paper. X.L., Z.H., J.W., K.S. and Z.Z. contributed to the discussion and paper revision.
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Nature Communications thanks Meng Li and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
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Hong, Y., Deng, T., Li, X. et al. Upwind electromigration of sub-10-nm metallic nano-interconnects. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70283-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70283-9
