Grain boundary diffusion of Pd through Ag thin layers evaporated on polycrystalline Pd in high vacuum studied by means of AES, PCA and FA

This work investigates the process of palladium diffusion through grain boundaries of thin polycrystalline silver films. Anger electron spectroscopy (AES) is employed to determine the composition of the topmost layers. Because of the overlapping of Ag and Pd Auger lines, principal component analysis (PCA) and factor analysis (FA) were used to decompose the series of Anger spectra recorded during annealing into contributions coming from particular constituents. These techniques also allowed us to confirm the presence of carbon and to evaluate the amount of this element in the investigated system. The consequences of carbon contamination of the Pd-Ag structures and its effect on the grain boundary diffusion data are put forward. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.