title: Measuring the roughness of buried interfaces by sputter depth profiling.
abstract: We report results of high-resolution sputter depth profiling of an alternating MgO/ZnO nanolayer stack grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) of ≈5.5 nm per layer. We used an improved dual beam time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometer to measure (24)Mg(+) and (64)Zn(+) intensities as a function of sample depth. Analysis of depth profiles by the mixing-roughness-information model yields a 1.5 nm nanolayer interfacial roughness within the MgO/ZnO multilayer. This finding was cross-validated using specular x-ray reflectivity. Such an analysis further suggested that the 1.5 nm roughness corresponds to native/jig-sawed interfacial roughness rather than interfacial interdiffusion during the ALD growth.
authors.affiliation: Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Ave., Argonne, IL 60439, USA. sergey.v.baryshev@gmail.com
authors.forename: S V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Baryshev
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Klug
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Zinovev
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Tripa
authors.forename: Q
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Elam
authors.forename: I V
authors.initials: IV
authors.lastname: Veryovkin