Growth of epitaxial Fe/V(001) superlattice films

A series of Fe/V multilayers was grown on polished MgO (001) substrates by dual-target magnetron sputtering. The structural quality of the samples was investigated by reflection high energy electron diffraction, low- and high-angle X-ray diffraction, reciprocal space mapping, polar scans, cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy and resistivity measurements. The results show that epitaxial Fe/V (001) superiattices with high crystallographic and interface quality can only be grown in a narrow substrate temperature region, 300-330 degrees C. The average interface roughness was estimated to be as low as +/-1 Angstrom. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.