Alloying of Pd thin films with Nb(0 0 1)

Annealing at elevated temperatures (1000-1600 K) of at least 10 ML thick Pd films deposited on Nb(0 0 1) has been found to result in a substrate capped by a pseudomorphic monolayer of Pd. This 1 ML thick Pd cap layer was characterised with a combination of UPS and DFT-calculations. UPS, RHEED and AES show that this cap layer protects the Nb(0 0 1) surface against (oxygen) contamination, which is a well known problem of Nb substrates. AES sputter profiling indicates that a major part of the Pd material in excess of the pseudomorphic monolayer is dissolved in the Nb lattice just below the surface. XPD shows that these dissolved Pd atoms occupy substitutional sites in the substrate. The analysis of the XPS-anisotropy also provides some information about the concentration and positions of the Pd and Nb atoms in the alloyed samples.