In situ study of heavy ion irradiation response of immiscible Cu/Fe multilayers

Recent studies show that immiscible metallic multilayers with incoherent interfaces can effectively reduce defect density in ion irradiated metals by providing active defect sinks that capture and annihilate radiation induced defect clusters. Although it is anticipated that defect density within the layers should vary as a function of distance to the layer interface, there is, to date, little in situ TEM evidence to validate this hypothesis. In this study monolithic Cu films and Cu/Fe multilayers with individual layer thickness, h, of 100 and 5 nm were subjected to in situ Cu ion irradiation at room temperature to nominally 1 displacement-per-atom inside a transmission electron microscope. Rapid formation and propagation of defect clusters were observed in monolithic Cu, whereas fewer defects with smaller dimensions were generated in Cu/Fe multilayers with smaller h. Furthermore in situ video shows that the cumulative defect density in Cu/Fe 100 nm multilayers indeed varies, as a function of distance to the layer interfaces, supporting a long postulated hypothesis.