Anisotropic modulated structures upon annealing of epitaxial AuNi ultrathin films on Au(001)

This letter presents experimental evidence of an anisotropic compositional modulation upon annealing in (Ni/Au)n multilayers and Au–Ni alloy ultrathin films embedded in Au layers. These materials were grown by molecular beam epitaxy, on a (001)Au buffer layer. The influence of temperature, local composition, and strain has been investigated by high-resolution electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction.