Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
The structural evolution of Au/Ni multilayers (with an increasing number of Ni monolayers (MLs)) has been investigated by HREM. As soon as the thickness of Ni becomes larger than 5 MLs, a structural change occurs which in fact has been predicted by numerical simulations. The deformation in the multilayer has been characterised by HREM image processing and has been related to the Ni profile. This profile has been compared to the chemical profile obtained by scanning PEELS analysis through the multilayer.