Structure and properties of nanostructured Al-Si alloys

Summary form only given, as follows. Summary form only given. The kinetics of phase separation after quenching of binary alloy into the miscibility gap of the phase diagram is problem of great theoretical and practical interest. The dominant processes observed are the demixing of the homogeneous solid solution into single-phase regions and the subsequent increase in the average size of these regions, known as coarsening. One of the most convenient objects to study this class of phenomena is nonequilibrium substitutional solid solutions formed from metal and semiconductor elements such as Al-Si. Thin films of Al-Si alloys were obtained with the aid of magnetron sputter on oriented single crystalline sapphire substrates. The microstructure of the thin films and the morphology and distribution of the matrix were studied with the aid of conventional and analytical electron microscopy. The possible role of the grain boundary phase transformations on the formation of the two-phase equilibrium microstructure is discussed.