Sample preserving deep interface characterization technique

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 97; no. 26; p. 266106
• Main Authors: Holmström, E, Olovsson, W, Abrikosov, I A, Niklasson, A M N, Johansson, B, Gorgoi, M, Karis, O, Svensson, S, Schäfers, F, Braun, W, Ohrwall, G, Andersson, G, Marcellini, M, Eberhardt, W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 31-12-2006
• Subjects: alloys; BINARY ALLOY SYSTEMS; BINDING ENERGY; COPPER ALLOYS; DENSITY FUNCTIONAL METHOD; electron-emission microscopy; ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE; FCC LATTICES; Fysik; INTERFACES; LAYERS; magnetic tunnel-junctions; magnetoresistance; MATERIALS SCIENCE; multilayers; NANOSTRUCTURES; NATURAL SCIENCES; NATURVETENSKAP; NICKEL ALLOYS; PHOTOEMISSION; Physics; scattering; TECHNOLOGY; TEKNIKVETENSKAP; THIN FILMS; X-RAY EMISSION ANALYSIS; X-RAY SPECTROSCOPY
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.266106

We propose a nondestructive technique based on atomic core-level shifts to characterize the interface quality of thin film nanomaterials. Our method uses the inherent sensitivity of the atomic core-level binding energies to their local surroundings in order to probe the layer-resolved binary alloy composition profiles at deeply embedded interfaces. From an analysis based upon high energy x-ray photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory of a Ni/Cu fcc (100) model system, we demonstrate that this technique is a sensitive tool to characterize the sharpness of a buried interface. We performed controlled interface tuning by gradually approaching the diffusion temperature of the multilayer, which lead to intermixing. We show that core-level spectroscopy directly reflects the changes in the electronic structure of the buried interfaces, which ultimately determines the functionality of the nanosized material.