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Effect of Microstructure on Phase Formation in Reaction of The Nb/Al Multilayer Thin Films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2012

Katayun Barmak
Affiliation:
IBM, GTD, East Fishkill Facility, Hopewell Jct., NY 12533
Kevin R. Coffey
Affiliation:
IBM, SSPD, 5600 Cottle Rd., San Jose CA 95193
David A. Rudman
Affiliation:
National Institute of Science and Technology, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303
Simon Foner
Affiliation:
National Magnet Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139
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Abstract

We investigated the phase formation sequence in the reaction of multilayer thin films of Nb/Al with overall compositions of 25 and 33 at.% AI. We report novel phenomena which distinguish thin-film reactions unequivocally from those in bulk systems. For sufficiently thin layers composition and stability of product phases are found to deviate significantly from that predicted from the equilibrium phase diagram. We demonstrate that in the Nb/Al system the length scales below which such deviations occur is about 150 nm. We believe that these phenomena occur due to the importance of grain boundary diffusion and hence microstructure in these thin films.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1992

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References

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