Ion beam mixing in Ag-Pd alloys

Ion beam mixing during 750 keV Kr+ irradiation at 80 K was measured on a series of Ag-Pd alloys using Au marker atoms. The mixing in pure Ag was the greatest and it decreased monotonically with increasing Pd content, being a factor of 10 higher in pure Ag than in pure Pd. This large difference in mixing cannot be explained by the difference in cohesion energy between Ag and Pd in the thermodynamic model of ion beam mixing proposed by Johnson et al. [W. L. Johnson, Y. T. Cheng, M. Van Rossum, and M-A. Nicolet, Nucl. Instrum. Methods B 7/8, 657 (1985)]. An alternative model based on local melting in the cascade is shown to account for the ion beam mixing results in Ag and Pd