Bulk and surface composition, amorphous structure, and thermocrystallization of electrodeposited alloys of tungsten with iron, nickel, and cobalt

It has been shown for iron-group alloys of tungsten, using ESCA spectroscopy of samples sputtered with argon ions and SEM/EDS analysis, that no oxygen is present in the alloy bulk. A very weak internal organization in the alloys, which follows from low and wide diffractograms usually obtained for electrodeposited layers, is thought to be a heavily distorted structure of the major metal component of the alloy. Thermal crystallization of thin layers of the amorphous tungsten alloys does not lead to formation of well-known intermetallic crystal structures. Received: 19 January 1998 / Accepted: 17 July 1998