Papers by Author: Mukul Gupta

Abstract: The self-diffusion of nitrogen is studied in amorphous silicon nitride, which is a model system for a covalently bound amorphous solid with a low atomic mobility where reliable diffusion data are still lacking. Comparative experiments on Si14Nx/Si15Nx (x ≈ 1.33) isotope multilayers were carried out with secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and neutron reflectometry (NR), respectively. It was found that experiments with SIMS are not very well suited for the determination of diffusivities in a broad temperature range. The minimum diffusion length of about 5-10 nm detectable with this method is too large. At high temperatures (> 1200 °C) the amorphous solid crystallizes before any diffusion is measured and at low temperatures (< 1100 °C) the diffusivities are too low to be detected. In contrast, with neutron reflectometry diffusion lengths in the order of 1 nm and diffusivities down to 10-24 m2 s-1 were measured between 950 and 1250 °C. The potential of this method for the determination of ultra slow diffusion processes is discussed.

Abstract: Iron self-diffusion measurements in amorphous and nanocrystalline chemically homogenous multilayers (CHM) of FeZr/57FeZr, (with nm range periodicity) have been studied with neutron reflectivity technique. It has been found that both the activation energy for diffusion and the pre-factor were significantly smaller as compared with bulk alloys. Effect of compressive stress on self-diffusion reveals a significant dependence on the activation energy as a function of applied stress. On the basis of the obtained results the diffusion mechanism in amorphous and nanocrystalline CHM of FeZr/57FeZr is reviewed in this paper.