TRANSMISSION ELECTRON-MICROSCOPY STUDY OF MICROSTRUCTURE AND [11(2)OVER-BAR-0]//[001] POLYCRYSTALLINE EPITAXY OF CONIGR/CR BILAYER FILMS

Detailed investigations of the microstructure and polycrystalline epitaxy of CoNiCr/Cr bilayer films have been carried out using various techniques of transmission electron microscopy. The average grain size for both the Cr and CoNiCr layers was about 510 Å although there is a great difference in their morphology. Analysis of the discontinuous ring (arced) diffraction patterns of the layers showed that the Cr underlayer is strongly [001] textured and the CoNiCr layer is weakly [112̄0] textured. The angular distribution of the Cr underlayer [001] texture axis was determined to be 6.7°and the ratio of the number of [001] textured grains to that of the randomly oriented grains was estimated to be 3:7 using dark-field imaging techniques. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.