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Low Energy Ion Assisted Vapor Deposition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

X. W. Zhou  and
H. N. G. Wadley
X. W. Zhou
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903
H. N. G. Wadley
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903
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Abstract

The performance of multilayered thin film materials often depends sensitively upon the (physical) roughness and degree of (chemical) mixing at interfaces. Irradiation of a growth surface with an assisting ion beam is often used to modify surface roughness. Molecular dynamics has been used to explore the use of low energy (less than 20 eV) Xe+ and Ar+ assisted deposition of model Ni/Cu/Ni multilayers to control both physical roughness and chemical mixing. The study indicated that under normal ion incidence condition, ion energies as low as 3 eV could effectively flatten the relatively weakly bonded copper surface (and therefore the nickel on copper interface). Higher ion energies (at least 10 eV) were required to flatten the more strongly bonded nickel surface. Chemical intermixing by an exchange mechanism between a surface atom and an underlying atom in an already deposited layer depended upon the binding energy of the already deposited layer. As a result, significant chemical mixing occurred as 9 eV (and above) ions impacted with nickel atoms on an already deposited copper surface. At a given ion incident energy, (the heavier) Xe+ ions resulted in less roughness but more mixing. A modulated ion assistance strategy in which no assisting ion beam was used while depositing the first few monolayers of each new metal layer was found to successfully reduce both interfacial roughness and interlayer mixing.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 585: Symposium L – Fundamental Mechanisms of Low-Energy-Beam Modified Surface , 1999 , 221
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2000

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