Simultaneous self-diffusion measurements of Fe and N in amorphous Fe86N14 alloy

using secondary ion mass spectroscopy were reported. In addition, neutron reflectivity was used to study the Fe self-diffusion in the same compound. The

broadening of a tracer layer of 57Fe86

15N14 sandwiched between Fe86N14 layers was

observed by SIMS measurements after the annealing of films at different

temperatures. A decay of the Bragg peak intensity after isothermal annealing was

also observed in |Fe86N14/57Fe86N14|10 multilayers in neutron reflectivity. It was

observed by secondary ion mass spectroscopy measurements that Fe diffusion was

about 2 orders of magnitude smaller than N, even though the structural relaxation

times for Fe and N were almost identical. This was an important result, indicating

that the relaxation time of diffusion was basically driven by the relaxation of the

structure itself.

Fe and N Self-Diffusion in Amorphous FeN: a SIMS and Neutron Reflectivity

Study. S.Chakravarty, M.Gupta, A.Gupta, S.Rajagopalan, A.K.Balamurugan,

A.K.Tyagi, U.P.Deshpande, M.Horisberger, T.Gutberlet: Acta Materialia, 2009,

57[4], 1263-71