Electron Microscopy of Thin Film Immiscible-Miscible Systems
Some preliminary studies on immiscible systems have been previously reported. This paper is a continuation of this work in an effort to expand the characterization of immiscible systems. The non-equilibrium behavior of many thin film materials compared to that of the bulk is fairly well established. The work discussed in the present paper is a comparative investigation of immiscible systems such as Ni-Ag to that of a simple eutectic, Ag-Si. Earlier work on immiscible systems has shown that upon thermal activation, one of the components exsolves out of the matrix and grows as single crystals upon the thin film matrix. Further investigation revealed this to be characteristic of a number of immiscible systems; however, a few anomalies have been found.Thin films were prepared by the co-evaporation of the components from separate sources at ambient temperatures onto freshly-cleaved (100) NaCl substrates. The co-evaporated films (300-400 Å thick) were deposited at a nominal background pressure (prior to deposition) of 4 X 10-5 torr.