Atomic mixing of Ni2O3/SiO2, NiO/SiO2, and Ni/SiO2 interfaces induced by swift heavy ion irradiation

We have investigated the interface mixing of Ni₂O₃/SiO₂, NiO/SiO₂, and Ni/SiO₂ induced by the irradiation with Ar, Kr and Xe ions of energies ranging from 90 MeV to 260 MeV. Since these energies are in the electronic stopping regime, atomic transport processes will not be directly initiated by elastic ion–target collisions, but need to be excited by secondary processes like electron–phonon coupling or Coulomb explosion. Nevertheless, we have observed a strong mixing effect in the ceramic systems if the electronic energy loss exceeds a certain threshold value. Estimation of an effective diffusion constant indicates that diffusion takes place in the molten ion track. In contrast to the ceramics, the metallic Ni layer is still insensitive even for the highest electronic stopping power used (S_e=28 keV/nm) and does not exhibit mixing with its SiO₂ substrate. In addition, NiO/SiO₂ and Ni/SiO₂ were irradiated in the nuclear stopping regime with 600 keV Kr and 900 keV Xe–ions. Here the intermixing effect is in good agreement with the assumption of ballistic atomic transport. Received: 5 February 2002 / Accepted: 11 February 2002 / Published online: 3 May 2002 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +49-711/685-3866, E-mail: bolse@ifs.physik.uni-stuttgart.de