X-ray fluorescence induced by standing waves in the grazing-incidence and grazing-exit modes: study of the Mg-Co-Zr system.

The characterization of Mg-Co-Zr tri-layer stacks using X-ray fluorescence induced by X-ray standing waves, in both the grazing-incidence (GI) and the grazing-exit (GE) modes, is presented. The introduction of a slit in the direction of the detector improves the angular resolution by a factor of two and significantly improves the sensitivity of the technique for the chemical characterization of the buried interfaces. By observing the intensity variations of the Mg K alpha and Co L alpha characteristic emissions as a function of the incident (GI mode) or detection (GE mode) angle, it is shown that the interfaces of the Si/[Mg/Co/Zr](x30) multilayer are abrupt, whereas in the Si/[Mg/Zr/Co](x30) multilayer a strong intermixing occurs at the Co-on-Zr interfaces. An explanation of this opposite behavior of the Co-on-Zr and Zr-on-Co interfaces is given by the calculation of the mixing enthalpies of the Co-Mg, Co-Zr and Mg-Zr systems, which shows that the Co-Zr system presents a negative value and the other two systems present positive values. Together with the difference of the surface free energies of Zr and Co, this leads to the Mg/Zr/Co system being considered as a Mg/CoxZry bi-layer stack, with x/y estimated around 3.5.