Morphology of buried interfaces in ion-assisted magnetron sputter deposited 11B4C-containing Ni/Ti multilayer neutron optics investigated by grazing incidence small angle scattering

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Broekhuijsen, Sjoerd, Ghafoor, Naureen, Schwartzkopf, Matthias, Zubayer, Anton, Birch, Jens, Eriksson, Fredrik
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2023
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author Broekhuijsen, Sjoerd
Ghafoor, Naureen
Schwartzkopf, Matthias
Zubayer, Anton
Birch, Jens
Eriksson, Fredrik
author_facet Broekhuijsen, Sjoerd
Ghafoor, Naureen
Schwartzkopf, Matthias
Zubayer, Anton
Birch, Jens
Eriksson, Fredrik
contents Multilayer neutron optics require precise control of interface morphology for optimal performance. In this work, we investigate the effects of different growth conditions on the interface morphology of Ni/Ti based multilayers, with a focus on incorporating low-neutron-absorbing 11B4C and using different ion assistance schemes. Grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering was used to probe the structural and morphological details of buried interfaces, revealing that the layers become more strongly correlated and the interfaces form mounds with increasing amounts of 11B4C. Applying high flux ion assistance during growth can reduce mound formation but lead to interface mixing, while a high flux modulated ion assistance scheme with an initial buffer layer grown at low ion energy and the top layer at higher ion energy prevents intermixing. The optimal condition was found to be adding 26.0 at.% 11B4C combined with high flux modulated ion assistance. A multilayer with a period of 48.2 Å and 100 periods was grown under these conditions, and coupled fitting to neutron and X-ray reflectivity data revealed an average interface width of only 2.7 Å, a significant improvement over the current state-of-the-art commercial Ni/Ti multilayers. Overall, our study demonstrates that the addition of 11B4C and the use of high flux modulated ion assistance during growth can significantly improve the interface morphology of Ni/Ti multilayers, leading to improved neutron optics performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2304_08002
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Morphology of buried interfaces in ion-assisted magnetron sputter deposited 11B4C-containing Ni/Ti multilayer neutron optics investigated by grazing incidence small angle scattering
Broekhuijsen, Sjoerd
Ghafoor, Naureen
Schwartzkopf, Matthias
Zubayer, Anton
Birch, Jens
Eriksson, Fredrik
Materials Science
Multilayer neutron optics require precise control of interface morphology for optimal performance. In this work, we investigate the effects of different growth conditions on the interface morphology of Ni/Ti based multilayers, with a focus on incorporating low-neutron-absorbing 11B4C and using different ion assistance schemes. Grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering was used to probe the structural and morphological details of buried interfaces, revealing that the layers become more strongly correlated and the interfaces form mounds with increasing amounts of 11B4C. Applying high flux ion assistance during growth can reduce mound formation but lead to interface mixing, while a high flux modulated ion assistance scheme with an initial buffer layer grown at low ion energy and the top layer at higher ion energy prevents intermixing. The optimal condition was found to be adding 26.0 at.% 11B4C combined with high flux modulated ion assistance. A multilayer with a period of 48.2 Å and 100 periods was grown under these conditions, and coupled fitting to neutron and X-ray reflectivity data revealed an average interface width of only 2.7 Å, a significant improvement over the current state-of-the-art commercial Ni/Ti multilayers. Overall, our study demonstrates that the addition of 11B4C and the use of high flux modulated ion assistance during growth can significantly improve the interface morphology of Ni/Ti multilayers, leading to improved neutron optics performance.
title Morphology of buried interfaces in ion-assisted magnetron sputter deposited 11B4C-containing Ni/Ti multilayer neutron optics investigated by grazing incidence small angle scattering
topic Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08002