Structural Study of Fe/Al MLS as a Function of Fe Film Thickness

The paper presents surface and interface structural study of electron beam evaporated [Fe (40 -10) /Al (10)] 15 thin multilayer structures (MLS). The structural studies show significant amount of intermixing between the layers during growth for lower thickness of Fe layer ( 20 A), indicating the loss of periodicity at these thicknesses i. e. the prepared layers are not continuous and they are far away from the percolation threshold. These structures appear like a composite film consisting clusters of Fe and Al matrix. However, at higher Fe layer thickness (30A), the presence of first order Bragg diffraction in reflectivity patterns demonstrates the evaluation of a better-MLS as compared to lower Fe layer thickness. AFM and resistivity measurements also support the above results.