Intermixing in Cu/Co: molecular dynamics simulations and Auger electron spectroscopy depth profiling

TL;DR

This study combines molecular dynamics simulations and Auger electron spectroscopy depth profiling to analyze ion-bombardment induced intermixing in Cu/Co multilayers, demonstrating good agreement and potential for estimating intermixing rates.

Contribution

It introduces a combined approach using MD simulations and AESD to quantify intermixing rates at interfaces, validating MD as a predictive tool.

Findings

Good agreement between MD simulations and AESD measurements

MD can estimate intermixing rates in interface systems

Methodology applicable to other multilayer interfaces

Abstract

The ion-bombardment induced evolution of intermixing is studied by molecular dynamics simulations and by Auger electron spectroscopy depth profiling analysis (AESD) in Cu/Co multilayer. It has been shown that from AESD we can derive the low-energy mixing rate and which can be compared with the simulated values obtained by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The overall agreement is reasonably good hence MD can hopefuly be used to estimate the rate of intermixing in various interface systems.