INTERDIFFUSION STUDIES IN SILVER PALLADIUM COUPLES BY MEANS OF AUGER DEPTH PROFILING

The behavior of bimetallic systems of the platinum group and copper gr oup metals in the periodic fable of the elements is interesting in reg ard to applications in microelectronics and in heterogeneous catalysis by metallic surfaces. Diffusion phenomena occurring at the interface of the two layers may influence physical and chemical properties of th e system. In the reported study interdiffusion in silver/palladium cou ples has been investigated in the temperature interval 423-523 K by Au ger depth profiling. The samples under investigation consisted of pall adium substrates of 99.99% purity, 0.5 mm thickness and 5 x 5 mm(2) ar ea and thin silver films of 260 mm thickness deposited onto the Pd sub strates and annealed in UHV conditions. The model based on Whipple's F ourier-LaPlace transform solution to the problem of coupled grain boun dary and intragranular diffusion was applied in order to determine int erdiffusion coefficients and activation energy of interdiffusion. The results of interdiffusion parameters have been analyzed and discussed.