Atomic Mixing Behavior of Co/Al(001) vs. Al/fcc-Co(001): Molecular Dynamics Simulation

Abstract

Using molecular dynamics simulations, we investigated the interface structures and the growth behaviors of nano-scale Al/Co/Al multilayers. For Co on Al(001), interface mixing occurred irrespective of the incident energy (K i ). Interestingly, increasing the incident energy increased the thickness of the mixing layers and decreased the roughness of the Co surface. In the case of Al on Co(001), in contrast to the case of Co/Al, interface mixing could not be found, especially for low incident energy. From these investigations, an optimized deposition technique is proposed that improves the quality of the interface/surface of the deposited thin film by controlling the incident adatom energies.

Fe-Al interface intermixing and the role of Ti, V, and Zr as a stabilizing interlayer at the interface

“…Layer structure, thickness, total roughness ͑chemical+ topological͒, and chemical roughness of individual layers determined by fitting RBS and XRR spectra for ͑a͒ Fe/ Al/ SiO 2 on Si and ͑b͒ Al/ Fe/ SiO 2 on Si. 11,[24][25][26][27] Ab initio pseudopotential calculations on the atomistic behavior of TM/Al͑001͒ and Al/TM͑001͒ surfaces explain this asymmetric behavior as due to the difference in energy barriers for the incorporation of the respective adatom into the substrate, with TM adatoms on the Al͑001͒ surface having relatively smaller incorporation barriers, leading to more intermixing for TM/ Al͑001͒ than for the Al/TM͑001͒ system. 27 In previous work we described an approach to stabilize the Fe-Al interface using a thin Ti͑ϳ15 Å͒ layer to reduce intermixing between Fe-Al at the interface.…”