Surfactant mediated growth of Ti/Ni multilayers

TL;DR

This study investigates how surfactants and ion energy influence the interface quality in Ti/Ni multilayers grown by ion beam sputtering, revealing optimal conditions for minimizing roughness and intermixing.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effect of Ag surfactant and ion energy on interface roughness and intermixing in Ti/Ni multilayers, providing insights into growth mechanisms.

Findings

Ag surfactant reduces interface roughness at 0.75 keV

Higher ion energy (1 keV) increases intermixing

Surfactant effectiveness depends on adatom energy

Abstract

The surfactant mediated growth of Ti/Ni multilayers is studied. They were prepared using ion beam sputtering at different adatom energies. It was found that the interface roughness decreased significantly when the multilayers were sputtered with Ag as surfactant at an ion energy of 0.75 keV. On the other hand, when the ion energy was increased to 1 keV, it resulted in enhanced intermixing at the interfaces and no appreciable effect of Ag surfactant could be observed. On the basis of the obtained results, the influence of adatom energy on the surfactant mediated growth mechanism is discussed.