Abstract

The flexibility of physical vapor deposition allows fabrication of near ideal structures which can be used to investigate fundamental aspects of the mechanics of materials. One important phenomena which can be addressed is the deformation which occurs during relaxation of epitaxial strains. We have developed a unique sputter deposition system capable of performing in-situ structural characterization using grazing incidence x-ray scattering (GIXS). This gives us the ability to accurately measure lattice parameters of films in the monolayer thickness regime. Using this capability, we have investigated epitaxial orientation relations and coherency stress relaxation in several epitaxial film systems, including Cu on Fe (001), and Co on Pt (111).

© 1994 Optical Society of America