Experimental evidence of two-stage formation of Al3Ni in reactive Ni/Al multilayer foils

This paper reports a two-stage process for the formation of Al3Ni via igniting and quenching Ni/Al multilayer foils. The first stage involved lateral growth of Al3Ni from isolated nucleation sites and subsequent coalescence into a continuous layer. The second stage was the growth of such Al3Ni layers in the direction normal to the layering until the entire Al was consumed, as suggested in Coffey’s model. Al3Ni subsequently reacted with the remaining Ni to form AlNi.