Recent advances in ion-assisted growth of Cr/Sc multilayer X-ray mirrors for the water window

Real-time spectroscopic ellipsometry study of ultrathin diffusion barriers for integrated circuits

“…More room is available to further enhance the effectiveness of the Ta-N structures as the diffusion barriers against the copper diffusion. This may be achieved by altering the deposition conditions in order to (1) decrease layer thicknesses (requirement of new generation interconnects); (2) minimize interface quality by increasing the flux and decreasing the energy of the bombarding ions; 20 and (3) minimize the resistivity of both layers without affecting the performance of the structure.…”

Low-energy ion-assisted control of interfacial structures in metallic multilayers

“…Metal superlattice structures also have tunable high reflectivity that has led to their use in X-ray, soft X-ray, and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) telescopes for solar physics and astronomical research [10][11][12]. These applications utilize multilayers that are composed of many metal layers ranging from a few monolayers to several nanometers in thickness.…”

“…While the role of interface structures upon the magnetotransport [6,7,[13][14][15] and optical properties [10,11] of thin films has been extensively studied, the mechanisms that control interfacial roughness and intermixing during multilayer growth have only recently begun to be addressed. Several experimental studies have sought to understand the kinetic and thermodynamic factors controlling the growth of thin films and multilayers by changing the growth temperature or using plasma-based methods to increase adatom mobility [10,[16][17][18]. The best metal superlattices are usually grown at relatively low homologous temperatures to avoid interdiffusion across interfaces.…”

“…Ion beams [17] and plasmas [10,20] are widely used to induce inert gas ion impacts with growth surfaces. This results in local energy transfer to surface atoms and enhanced surface atom mobility and enables use of a low epitaxial growth temperature to avoid interlayer diffusion in the subsurface region [21][22][23].…”

At-wavelength metrology on Sc-based multilayers for the UV and water window

“…Their optical performance is even more strongly influenced by the interface quality because the single layer thicknesses are in the atomic range of about one nanometer. Cr/Sc is the most promising material combination for application in the "water window" due to its good growth properties [13][14][15][16][17][18] .…”