Thermoelasticity and interdiffusion in CuNi multilayers

X-ray scattering experiments on coherent CuNi multilayers are performed at various annealing temperatures. First, we show that the classical thermoelasticity theory can be applied in such nanosamples to link composition and strain fields at intermediate temperature. Second, when interdiffusion takes place at higher temperature, the satellite peaks measured at different annealing times indicate the presence of a layer-by-layer interdiffusion mode controlled by the asymmetry of the atomic mobilities in this system.