Columbia International Publishing Advances in Alloys and Compounds (2014) Vol. 1 No. 1 pp. 30-45 Research Article ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding e-mail: ocrisan@yahoo.com 1* National Institute for Materials Physics, P.O. Box MG-7, 77125, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania 2 Bucharest University, Faculty of Physics, 077125, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania 30 Structural, Morphological and Mössbauer Spectroscopy Study of Fe 1-x Cr x ȋx ≤ Ͳ.ͳ4Ȍ Thin Films as Buffers for Plasma Facing Components S.G. Greculeasa 1,2 , G. Schinteie 1 , P. Palade 1 , G. Filoti 1 , L. Trupina 1 , G.A. Lungu 1 , O. Crisan 1,* , V. Kuncser 1 Received 20 December 2013; published online 3 May 2014 © The author(s) 2014. Published with open access at www.uscip.us Abstract Thin Fe1-xCrx alloy films enriched in 57 Fe Mössbauer isotope and with Cr contents approaching that of a special reduced-activation martensitic steel were sputtered on Si(0 0 1) substrates and subsequently processed by hydrogenation treatments. Atomic force microscopy, grazing incidence X-ray diffractometry, X- ray reflectometry, magneto-optic Kerr effect magnetometry, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy and conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy have been employed in order to study morphological, structural and atomic diffusion aspects in the deposited structures. Most of the alloy films present mainly an amorphous-like metallic phase with Cr content roughly in agreement with the designed compositions, as well as a high Si amount (about 20 at.%), forming an iron silicide phase having Cr atoms dissolved in the structure. Both the film thickness and the presence of Cr atoms influence the local surrounding of Fe, with implications in the composition-related properties of the films. The hydrogenation treatment induces the formation of a crystallized bcc metallic phase, removes at different extents the oxide phases and also removes Si and Cr atoms from the bcc structure of Fe. Keywords: Fe1-xCrx thin films; Atomic interdiffusion; Magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE); Conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy (CEMS); X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) 1. Introduction In order to maintain good operating conditions in a fusion reactor, e.g. the tokamak of the ITER project, diffusion and atomic intermixing aspects of the plasma facing components (PFCs) (Philipps et al., 2002; Bloom et al., 2007; Shimomura, 2007; Pitts et al., 2011; Tokar et al., 2012) have to be treated with special consideration. Such plasma facing components are special layers protecting the undercoated structure and having in addition other crucial functionalities. In this respect, complex materials with challenging and even opposed properties (as for example W and Be) are required for