Annealing effects in plated-wire memory elements, part I: Interdiffusion of copper and permalloy

Results of investigations using X-ray diffraction and electron-beam microprobe techniques have shown that copper and Permalloy platings interdiffuse at low temperatures (in the range 180-230°C) when plated-wire memory elements are annealed for times as short as 50 h. Measurable interdiffusion between Permalloy platings and gold substrates does not occur in similar conditions. Both magnetic and compositional changes during aging are found to occur by a thermally activated process with activation energies around 38 kcal/mol. It is shown, however, that copper-diffusion and magnetic-dispersion changes during aging are merely concurrent processes, neither being the other's cause.