• Interfaces at the Mg/Sc and Sc/Mg bilayers are investigated. • Bilayers are studied by secondary ion mass spectrometry and x-ray reflectivity. • Mg-on-Sc and Sc-on-Mg interfaces in the bilayers are found to be asymmetric. Mg/Sc and Sc/Mg bilayers were studied to investigate their interfaces. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy and grazing incidence x-ray reflectivity are combined to determine the realistic structure of the bilayer stack: thickness, refractive index, and roughness of layers and interlayers respectively. In addition, soft x-ray reflectivity measurements provide sensitive information about the chemical environment of scandium, when the incident photon energy is tuned in the vicinity of the Sc L-absorption edge (∼ 400 eV). Both Mg-on-Sc and Sc-on-Mg interfaces have high roughness (∼1 nm) and a MgSc compound interlayer but are shown to be asymmetric.
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