Structural Characterization of Cu/Ni Superlattices by X-ray Diffraction Modeling

The structure of a series of Cu/Ni is characterized by using a program, SUPREX, to model the x-ray diffraction patterns, multilayers. The samples had nominal layer thickness of 3/3, 7/7, 13.5/13.5, 20/20, 30/30, 50/50, 80/80, 100/100, and 200/200 Angstroms. The diffraction patterns were taken around the (111) peak for the two constituent materials. A kinematical model is used to characterize the diffraction patterns and the parameters for the model are described. An initial model is calculated using initial guesses for the parameters. The model is then fit to the data by reducing $x^2$using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. The samples are shown to be high quality supperlattices.