low 400℃, the upward shift of D and G Lines in Raman spectra indicates that the amorphous carbon layers are changing from ones with bond-angle disorder and fourfold-bonding only to ones containing threefold-bonding. In the crystalline stage, the amorphous carbon layers in the as-deposited multilayers crystallize to graphite crystallites in the annealing temperature range of 500-600℃. The rapid increase in the intensity ratio of D line to G line and dramatic decrease in linewidth further confirm this substantial structural change. In the grain growth stage, the specimens are annealed at temperatures higher than 700℃. The decrease in the intensity ratio implies a growth in the graphite crystallite dimensions, which is consistent with the XRD and TEM results.

Carbon nitride films have been fabricated by a dc facing-target reactive sputtering system for various N2 fractions (PN) in the gas mixture. Complementary measurement techniques, including atomic force microscopy (AFM), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), were used to systematically study the morphology and microstructure of the films. AFM images show that the average surface roughness increases with increasing P-N. XPS analyses indicate that the concentration of N is not directly proportional to PN, and it rises quickly to a saturated value of similar to33 at% at a PN of 20%, which can be attributed to the chemical sputtering effect. The ratio N-C(sp2)/N-C(sp3) increases with increase in PN from 0% to 20%, and then decreases with further increase in P-N. However, the number of sp2-hybridized C atoms continues to increase over the whole range of PN, as evidenced by Raman and FTIR measurements. The growth of a disordered sp2 C structure at P-N below and above 20% can be attributed to the incorporation of N and the compressive stress relaxing, respectively. Raman scattering and HRTEM analyses reveal an incomplete ordering process of the sp2 C structure with increase in PN.

Fe-C granular films with different Fe volume fraction x, were fabricated using a DC facing-target sputtering system at room temperature and subsequently annealed at different temperatures. X-ray diffraction and selected area electron diffraction analyses indicate that as-deposited and low-temperature annealed (less than or equal to350℃) samples are composed of amorphous Fe and C, and higher temperature annealing makes the amorphous Fe transform to alpha-Fe, which is also confirmed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Magnetic measurements indicate that at room temperature the as-deposited Fe-C (xv=58) granular films are superparamagnetic and annealed ones are ferromagnetic. The coercivity of 100 nm thick Fe-C (xv=58) granular films increases with annealing temperature (for 1h) and time (at 450℃). The coercivity of the 100 nm thick Fe-C (xv=58) samples annealed at temperatures ranging from 400 to 500℃ decreases linearly with measuring temperature T, signalling a domain wall motion mechanism. For the samples annealed at 550℃, the change of in-plane coercivity with T satisfies the relation Hc similar to T-1/2, reflecting that this system behaves better as a set of Stoner-Wohlfarth particles. It was also found that there exists a critical thickness (similar to 133nm) for the 450 oC annealed (for 1 h) Fe-C (xv=58) granular films with thickness in the range 100-200nm, below and above which the magnetization reversal is dominated by domain wall motion and by Stoner-Wohlfarth rotation, respectively.

(Fe3O4)1-x-(SiO2)x composite films have been prepared by reactive sputtering iron and SiO2 targets in Ar+O2 mixture at room temperature. Transmission electron microscopy bright field images show that with the increase of SiO2 addition, uniform Fe3O4 grains are well separated by the amorphous SiO2 matrix, forming a well-defined granular structure. Temperature dependence of resistivity ρ(T) indicates that the electron tunneling mechanism featured by dominates the transport properties of the films, which smears out the Verwey transition intrinsic to Fe2/1log−∝Tρ3O4. This tunneling transport of electrons causes a spin-dependent magnetoresistance (MR){ρ(H)-ρ(o)/ρ(0)} of about-4.7% for Fe3O4 films, and-1.8% for (Fe3O4)0.6(SiO2)0.4 composite films under 46-kOe magnetic field at room temperature. Magnetic and magnetoresistance measurements reveal that the antiferromagnetically coupled Fe3O4 grains are decoupled and show the behavior of superparamagnetism at. 4.0≥x

Amorphous CoMoN/CN compound soft-X-ray multilayers were fabricated by dual-facing-target sputtering. Their structural thermal stability has been investigated by monitoring the structural evolutions of CN and CoMoN sublayers at annealing temperatures up to 800 degreesC using complementary measurement techniques, and measuring the coefficient of interfacial diffusion at annealing temperatures below 300 degreesC. The period expansion at annealing temperatures below 600 degreesC, which is usually observed in annealed metal/carbon soft-X-ray multilayers, is only 5%. The enhanced sp(2) to sp(3) bond ratio caused by the "incorporation annealing effect" of nitrogen [1] is thought to be responsible for the improved thermal stability of CN sublayers. Mo addition greatly suppresses the structural thermal evolution of CoMoN sublayers. XPS and TEM analyses indicate that the strong chemical bonding between N and Co atoms and Mo nitride aggregation in the grain boundary of cobalt are the main mechanisms for the high thermal stability of CoMoN sublayers. The layered structure of the CoMoN/CN multilayers still exists at the annealing temperature of 800 degreesC, while Co/C and CoN/CN multilayers have already been destroyed at this temperature. Compared with Co/C and CoN/CN multilayers, the smaller negative interdiffusivity measured by X-ray diffraction reveals the stable interfaces of CoMoN/CN multilayers. These results illustrate that refractory metal incorporation and strong chemical bond establishment are quite effective in obtaining thermally highly stable compound soft-X-ray optical multilayers.