Metallic Multilayers
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| TEM cross-section of (X-ray mirror) W-Si multilayer; periodicity 2.5 nm. |
Thin-film deposition permits the production of artificial metallic multilayers with layer thicknesses of as little as a few angstroms. The repeat distances in the multilayers (thickness of two adjacent layers) can be selected to be comparable with the lengths of physical interactions (for example, magnetic interaction length, superconducting coherence length, electron mean free path); in this way novel properties can be obtained. There is a large effort on multilayers and their properties in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at Cambridge; much of this is in the Device Materials Group. In the Metastable Materials Group the focus is on the use of multilayers for sensitive diffusion measurements (down to 10e-27 m2/s).
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Arrhenius plot of Ag-Au interdiffusivity: (a) conventional high-temperature measurements (b) early multilayer work by Cook and Hilliard (1969) (c) recent multilayer data, extending measurements down to 140 Celsius |
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