Thermal-spike effects in Xe-irradiated Ag/Fe bilayers observed with PAC markers

Abstract

In the thermally immiscible bilayer system Ag/Fe the atomic transport induced by 450 keV Xe ion irradiation was investigated by means of perturbed angular correlation (PAC) spectroscopy. A submonolayer of $\rm ^{111}In$ PAC probe atoms was deposited in Fe at a distance of 0–17 nm from the Ag/Fe interface to monitor the interface mixing. The ion irradiation results in a thermal-spike–induced transport of the $\rm ^{111}In$ from the Fe into the Ag layer caused by the different chemical affinities of In to Ag and Fe. Taking advantage of the nanometer resolution of the PAC method, the average size of the thermal spikes was estimated to be about 5 nm