Growing imbedded Ni3C-rich layer with sharp interfaces by means of ion beam mixing of C/Ni layers

Árpád Barna (1) , László Kotis (1) , János Lábár (1) , Attila Sulyok (1) , Attila L Tóth (1) , Miklós Menyhárd (1) , Peter Panjan (2)

1 MFA - Research Institute for Technical Physics and Materials Science
2 IJS - Jozef Stefan Institute [Ljubljana]

C/Ni bilayers of various layer thicknesses (20-40 nm) were ion bombarded using Ga + and Ni + projectiles with energies in the range of 20-30 keV. Ion bombardment resulted in the growth of a Ni 3 C rich layer with the following features: a. / sharp carbon / Ni 3 C rich layer interface b. / the amount of Ni 3 C produced by the irradiation proportional to the square root of the fluence and depended on the type of projectile c. / good correlation between the distribution of vacancies produced by the ion bombardment and the distribution of the Ni 3 C. The formation of the metastable Ni 3 C compound was explained by a vacancy assisted process. The sharp interface is the consequence of a relaxation process removing the intermixed Ni from the carbon layer. The square root of fluence dependence of the thickness of the Ni 3 C rich layer can be explained by a usual diffusion equation considering moving boundaries.

Mots clés: Physical Sciences

Árpád Barna, László Kotis, János Lábár, Attila Sulyok, Attila L Tóth, et al.. Growing imbedded Ni3C-rich layer with sharp interfaces by means of ion beam mixing of C/Ni layers. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 2011, 44 (12), pp.125405. ⟨10.1088/0022-3727/44/12/125405⟩. ⟨hal-00604890⟩