A D.C. magnetron sputtering system has been designed and developed for the deposition of thin films and multilayers. The aim of generating such layered structures is the creation of materials with novel properties e.g. neutron mirrors. For this purpose the design of the system had some special requirements. After installation and optimization, the deposition system was successfully used to deposit films of Cu, Al and Ni on Si substrates (only the latter is being reported here), which were analyzed by x-ray reflectivity and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry.