Ion-beam mixing of Fe∕Si bilayers, induced at room temperature by 100keV Ar+40, 180keV Kr+86, and 250keV Xe+132 ions, was investigated. The study focuses on the influence of the preamorphization of the Si(100) substrates by 1.0keV Ar-ion irradiation. Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy as well as scanning and transmission electron microscopies were applied for structural characterization. The mixing rate across the preamorphized Fe∕Si interface was, on average, by 76% higher than that of crystalline Si.

No abstract

Structural changes in multilayered AlN/TiN nanocomposites upon Ar+ ion irradiation were investigated. Reactive sputtering was used to deposit (AlN/TiN) × 5 multilayers on Si(1 0 0), to a total thickness of ∼270 nm. Argon was implanted at 200 keV, to 5 × 1015–4 × 1016 ions cm−2. The as-deposited multilayers had a very fine columnar nanocrystalline structure, the width of individual grains was up to ∼10 nm. It was found that this immiscible system exhibits a high ion radiation stability, the AlN and TiN layers remaining well separated, with sharp interfaces. Ion irradiation induced small local density changes and only a slight increase in individual grains, in the region where most damage was deposited by the impact ions. For the highest irradiation fluence there was also some migration of Ti into AlN in this region, which was assigned to excess nitrogen within the AlN layers. Due to these small structural changes, ion irradiation enhanced the mechanical strength of the multilayered nanocomposites.

No abstract

No abstract