Effect of deposition temperature on phase formation in Nb/Si multilayers

摘要

Silicide formation has attracted much attention in recent years for its practical applications in microelectronics devices as well as for its fundamental interest [1,2]. The phase evolution induced by low-temperature annealing in many melts/silicon systems has been explored extensively [3-6]. However, the effects of kinetic factor on the phase selection during non-equilibrium deposition have not been well understood. Up to now, there has been only a little evidence that the phase selection depends on the deposition conditions [7-9]. Recently, investigations on the formation of metal-rich phases and the coexistence of multiphase in the reactions between Si and ultra-high-vacuum deposited metal films during annealing have been reported [10-12], but the exact mechanism in thin-film reactions is not yet clear.