Low-Temperature Annealing Induced Amorphization in Nanocrystalline NiW Alloy Films

Figure 5

Schematic of microstructure evolution from (a) as-deposited NiW alloy, to (b) after 30 min annealing, and eventually to (c) after further 60 min annealing: (a) represents a columnar grain, with W atoms (red) distributed in Ni (blue) matrix; (b) illustrates the appearance of bct Ni₄W structure and the regions already changed to amorphous structure; and (c) illustrates the collapsing of nearly the entire crystalline structure after further annealing.

(a)

(b)

(c)