Structural investigations of laser-deposited Fe/Al multilayers

Fe/Al multilayers are prepared by crossed-beam pulsed laser deposition and investigated by Rutherford backscattering, conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The
results are compared with purely ballistic simulations of the deposition process using the TRIYDN4.0 code. It is found that the intermixing of adjacent layers must be decribed in terms of ballistic mixing followed
by chemical mixing. The phase build-up in the transition layer between adjacent layers follows the non-equilibrium behaviour of Fe/Al in analogy to investigations on mechanically alloyed and ion-beam mixed Fe/Al. In
Fe-rich areas a bcc-solid-solution is formed. In Al-rich environment an amorphous phase is observed.