Artificially modulated silver/aluminum multilayer films with modulation wavelengths LAMBDA between 1.35 and 21.3 nm, and total film thicknesses of 1 mum were prepared by ion-beam sputtering. The mechanical properties of these films were investigated by a low load microhardness indentation technique. The films displayed increased hardness as the modulation wavelength decreased. X-ray diffraction scans showed well-defined small angle peaks and satellite peaks for high angles indicating a coherent multilayer structure. The hardness enhancement as the modulation wavelength decreases may be partially attributed to the Ag2Al formation at the interfaces. The high quality of the well-defined layer structure is confirmed by the presence of interference maxima corresponding to the number of bilayers in the low angle diffraction data for films with total film thicknesses less than 33.0 nm.