Structural Properties of Al-Cu Thin Films after Heat Treatment

In this work we are interested by the decomposition behaviour after heat treatment at 500°C of nanostructured Al-Cu deposits, prepared by radio frequency (13.56MHz) magnetron sputtered from composite targets. The use of X-ray diffraction leads to the characterization of different structures and the estimation of grain size and dislocation density. The grain size of the films is found to increase with annealing. The dislocation density is observed to exhibit a decrease trend with annealing temperature which leads to a reduction in the concentration of lattice imperfections A specific thermal study of the Al-Cu deposits, by combined thermal analysis (TDA/TG) permit to follow the structural behavior of the deposits with heat treatment. For Al-7.21at%Cu deposit, the exothermic peak convolution may be due to the elimination of micro deformations present in the sample.