Silicon carbide layers were fabricated using self-propagating high-temperature synthesis of binary silicon-carbon based reactive multilayers. The silicon and carbon bilayers were fabricated with two different bilayer thicknesses. They are deposited by magnetron sputtering in an alternating layer system with a total thickness of 1 μm. The entire system is annealed by rapid thermal annealing at different temperatures ranging from 500 to 1100 °C. From XRD analysis we could find that the formation of the silicon carbide phase was initiated from 700 °C. With increasing bilayer thickness the silicon carbide phase formation was partially suppressed by the silicon recrystallization due to resulting lower carbon diffusion into silicon. The transformation process proceeds in a four-step process: densification/recrystallization, interdiffusion, nucleation and transformation. From this, it was noted that when compared to low bilayer thickness samples, the formation of the silicon carbide phase is delayed with increasing bilayer thickness and needs higher reaction initiation temperatures. Graphical abstract

Reactive aluminum–nickel multilayer system shows exothermic energetic materials which act as a heat source for packaging and bonding of microsystems. The main challenge is controlling the self-propagation reaction velocity and temperature generated by thermal management through different thermal conductive substrate materials. The current work investigates the heat distribution of Al/Ni multilayer foils from different thermal conductive substrates which act as heat sink materials during the self-propagating reaction. A two-dimensional numerical model was developed to study thermal conductive heat loss and substrate thermal properties on the self-propagating reaction in Al/Ni multilayer foils. The self-propagating reaction was introduced on the surface of the foils by an electrical spark. Here we investigate the minimum critical thickness of Al/Ni multilayer foils which shows the self-propagation reaction on different substrates and verified from the two-dimensional numerical model. The outcomes of this investigation will facilitate the integration of Al/Ni multilayer foils on different substrates as intrinsic heat sources for different applications of micro/nanodevices. Graphical abstract