Anomalous evolution of interfaces in Fe/Ag magnetic multilayer

Abstract

Interfaces greatly influence the magnetic properties of multilayer nanostructures. In the present work, the x-ray standing wave (XSW) technique along with conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy have been used to study the evolution of interfaces in Fe/Ag system as a function of thermal annealing. The XSW technique has sufficient depth resolution so as to determine the concentration profiles of Fe across the two interfaces, namely Fe-on-Ag and Ag-on-Fe independently. In as-deposited Ag/Fe/Ag trilayer, Fe-on-Ag interface has a substantially higher roughness of 1.3 nm as compared to 0.9 nm of Ag-on-Fe interface. It is shown that the observed difference in the roughness of the two interfaces is due to a substantial intermixing between Fe and Ag occurring preferentially at Fe-on-Ag interface. With thermal annealing, the two interfaces exhibit opposite behaviour; while Fe-on-Ag interface exhibits an initial sharpening, Ag-on-Fe interface exhibits a monotonous broadening. Two competing processes occur at the interfaces, (i) interface sharpening as a result of de-mixing, driven by a large positive heat of mixing between Fe and Ag and (ii) increase in topological roughness due to increased thermal agitation. This results in a non-monotonous variation in the roughness of Fe-on-Ag interface. At sufficiently high temperature the layered structure is completely destroyed, leading to formation of Fe and Ag nanoparticles.