Transmission electron microscopy studies on the lateral growth of nickel silicides

摘要

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been utilized to study the nickelhyphen;silicide growth in selfhyphen;supported lateralhyphen;diffusion, thinhyphen;film couples by overlapping deposited layers of Ni and Si between two silicon oxide deposited films. Energyhyphen;dispersive xhyphen;ray spectroscopy, microdiffraction, and selected area diffraction were used to identify the Nihyphen;silicide phases and their crystal structures. Longhyphen;grain growth of Ni2Si, as a result of phasehyphen;boundary migration induced by diffusion, was observed duringinsituannealing between 500 and 750thinsp;deg;C in TEM. No preferred orientation or particular crystallographic relationship was found among the long grains.