Nanostructuring of Multilayers by a Thermally Driven Self Assembling Process

Abstract

AbstractMultilayers consisting of two immiscible components (e.g. Fe/Ag Fe/Au or Ni/NiO) could by transformed by an annealing process into a nanostructured system of non statistically distributed nearly spherical particles in a surrounding matrix of the complementary component. The non statistical arrangement of the particles and the dynamics of the disintegration process strongly depend on the initial interface energy, i.e. the local interface curvature and the local interfacial stress. Detailed microstructure investigations of the different systems are used to interpret the measured transport properties.