Characterization and application of Al/Ni reactive multilayers in exploding foils

A self-propagating reaction achieved by initiating an Al/Ni reactive multilayer foil can generate significant heat. The interdiffusion rate of the reactants plays an important role in the foils properties and is mainly affected by premixing and the bilayer thickness. The present research aims to characterize Al/Ni multilayer foils and to investigate their influence on an exploding foil initiator. Samples with different bilayer thicknesses were fabricated by magnetron sputtering. The heat released and the flame velocity were characterized. Foils with a stored energy of about 1100 J/g were prepared and the heat released revealed the existence of a 4 nm premixing layer. The analytical model proposed by Mann was employed to match the measured flame velocities; the fitted model showed good agreement with the experimental results. To make a comparison, Cu and Al/Ni exploding foils with the same bridge size were fabricated and tested in the identical discharge circuit. The results showed that the energy deposition ratio of an Al/Ni foil was 67-69%, while the value for Cu was only 39-45%, which indicated that Al/Ni multilayers could effectively increase the energy utilization of an initiator. Larger average flyer velocities were also observed with the Al/Ni initiators.