LOW-DIMENSION STRUCTURAL-PROPERTIES AND MICROINDENTATION STUDIES OF ION-BEAM-SPUTTERED MULTILAYERS OF AG AL FILMS/

Artificially modulated silver/aluminum multilayer films with modulatio n wavelengths LAMBDA between 1.35 and 21.3 nm, and total film thicknes ses of 1 mum were prepared by ion-beam sputtering. The mechanical prop erties of these films were investigated by a low load microhardness in dentation technique. The films displayed increased hardness as the mod ulation wavelength decreased. X-ray diffraction scans showed well-defi ned small angle peaks and satellite peaks for high angles indicating a coherent multilayer structure. The hardness enhancement as the modula tion wavelength decreases may be partially attributed to the Ag2Al for mation at the interfaces. The high quality of the well-defined layer s tructure is confirmed by the presence of interference maxima correspon ding to the number of bilayers in the low angle diffraction data for f ilms with total film thicknesses less than 33.0 nm.