Structural and elastic properties of silver-palladium and copper-palladium superlattices.

Abstract

I prepared Ag/Pd and Cu/Pd superlattices using both sputtering and molecular beam epitaxy. For the Ag/Pd (t(Ag):t(Pd) = 1:1) superlattices, I observed two distinctive behaviors in the structural coherence length ξ as a function of modulation wavelength Λ. Using Brillouin light scattering (BLS) I observed a 50% enhancement of the shear elastic constant c₅₅ and a 16% increase of c₁₁ with decreasing Λ. Annealing study showed that a high structural order of the films in the growth direction was strongly correlated to the increase of c₅₅. For the 3:1 and 1:3 Ag/Pd samples, I also observed a monotonic increase of the Rayleigh velocity υ(R) (or c₅₅) with decreasing Λ and similar behavior in the structural coherence length to the 1:1 samples. In conclusion, the recrystallization of the alloy and the formation of extended interfaces by intermixing at the Ag-Pd interfaces are responsible for a large enhancement of c₅₅. Using BLS for the Cu/Pd superlattices, I observed a 24% decrease of c₅₅ as Λ was decreased to ∼30-40 Å, followed by a rapid increase for smaller Λ. The observed homogeneous strain in the growth direction showed a strong relationship with c₅₅. The strain was localized at the interface and the Cu/Pd films were in compressive stress for Λ < 38 Å. In conclusion, a localized strain at the interfaces in Cu/Pd is related to the softening in c₅₅. The measurements of in-plane lattice spacing d[220] indicated a structural transformation of the films at Λ = 14 Å from an incoherent to a coherent structure. However, the in-plane strain did not show any relationship with the softening of c₅₅. For single crystalline Cu/Pd superlattices, well-defined RHEED streaks showed incommensurate growth of Cu(111) on Pd(111) layer. The measured shear elastic constant c₅₅ showed a 26% decrease with respect to the largest Λ film with a peak at Λ ≃ 40 Å. Unlike the sputtered films, while c₅₅ decreases by 26% with decreasing Λ, the Cu/Pd films show no change in d(avg)[111] for Λ > 40 Å. I observed no in-plane anisotropies in υ(R) as predicted from theory for single crystal films.