Crystal Structure of the Intermetallic Thin-Film Cu–Sn Condensate

The synthesis of intermetallic compounds in multilayer Cu–Sn films is confined within reaction islands, which can attain 100 nm in size. X-ray diffraction analysis reveals the predominance of one intermetallic Cu₆Sn₅ phase, while electron microscopy evidences a high crystallographic orientation of its islands. They have the same orientation to the film surface, but are rotated with respect to each other at different angles and randomly oriented to the axis, which is perpendicular to the film plane and coincide with the crystallographic axis [100] of individual single crystals.