In order to gain a better understanding of the interfacial alloying in binary immiscible metallic multi-layers, a size-dependent kinetic model was established in order to address the diffusion that took place at the interface in the immiscible metallic bilayer at the nanoscale. An abnormal interfacial diffusion behavior was found when the diffusion length was less than 2nm. The nanosize-dependent diffusion coefficients of binary immiscible metals in bilayers were predicted on the basis of the proposed model. Taking the Cu–Ta multi-layers as an example, it was shown that these theoretical predictions were in agreement with experiments and computational simulations.

Anomalous Interfacial Diffusion in Immiscible Metallic Multilayers - a Size-Dependent Kinetic Approach. G.Ouyang, C.X.Wang, G.W.Yang: Applied Physics Letters, 2005,  86[17], 171914 (3pp)