Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2011
We describe the strategy that we are using to make precision metal multilayers. Differential scanning calorimetry has been used with the Ni/Zr system to study the abruptness of the interface as a function of the sputtering pressure. For 10nm period multilayers there is a monotonic increase in the width of the interface with increasing sputtering pressure. W/Si multilayers have been studied as a function of both the sputtering pressure and the relative thicknesses of tungsten and silicon. At reasonably low sputtering pressures a well textured (110) tungsten X-ray peak is seen which is compatible with the expected thickness of the tungsten layers.
Finally, we report some preliminary work on sputtering from tungsten and silicon targets which are at different distances from the substrate so that the degrees of bombardment on the growing layers of the film can be independently varied.