Interface assisted ion beam mixing in immiscible systems

The thermally immiscible Fe-Ag and Co-Ag systems have a low solubility within the solid and liquid equilibrium states due to the large positive heat of mixing. Understanding of the phenomenon of ion beam mixing in these immiscible systems is far from complete. Especially the role of interfaces and nano-size thickness of multilayers in ion beam mixing and the formation of metastable phases are not well understood. [More …]

 

 

Manipulation of magnetic nanostructures by ion irradiation : synthesis and ordering

Ordering of CoPt has been observed by ion beam annealing the mixed samples with 4 MeV Si⁺ ions at elevated temperatures. Clear splitting of diffraction peaks (002)_CoPt and (200)_CoPt is observed  in GIXRD which provided evidence that CoPt has got ordered. Ordering of CoPt was further confirmed by MOKE results where ion beam annealed samples showed increase in coercivity in their hysteresis loops. Glancing incidence RBS revealed that enhanced cobalt diffusion towards surface during ion beam annealing. The results show that ion beams can be used in a productive way to tailor the magnetic properties of the intermetallic alloys.[More …]