Thermally induced chemical transformations at the interface between a 100 nm α–Fe2O3 and a polycrystalline α–Al2O3 substrate are studied and compared for the cases of the as-formed and ion bombarded interfaces. The thermal annealings are carried out under vacuum at 450 °C for different time durations and the transformations are examined by conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy. It is shown that in the sample prebombarded with 110 keV Ar+ ions, the formation of Fe3−xAlxO4, FeAl2O4, and FeO phases is favored at variance with a nonbombarded sample in which primarily a defective Fe3O4-y phase is produced with some amount of FeO. This difference is explained in terms of the annealing process of the oxygen vacancies produced during Ar implantation near the interfacial region.
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