Effect of chemical and magnetic interactions on fractal growth under deposition–diffusion–aggregation in some binary metal systems

We have investigated fractal growth phenomena in three binary metal systems; the Sc-Co, Sc-Cr and Sc-Ni systems. For the Sc-Co and Sc-Cr systems, we describe the observed evolution process of the fractals based on the deposition–diffusion–aggregation model and find that the magnetic interaction can play an important role in influencing the fractal dimension, i.e. the stronger the magnetic moment of the aggregating particles, the smaller the dimension of the resultant fractal. Comparing the observations in the three systems studied, it was found that the chemical interaction between two dissimilar atoms might prevent the formation of the fractal pattern during deposition, for example in the Ni-Sc system .