CHEMICAL AND STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF Co–Ni SILICIDE THIN FILMS

Abstract

By means of pulsed laser deposition we prepared Co–Ni/p-Si thin films upon a Si(100) substrates. Samples were thermally treated in vacuum in order to promote silicide formation. From X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis, we detected chemical shifts of the Co2p and Ni2p transitions, characteristic of silicide binding energy, at the respective ranges of 778.3–778.6 and 853.2–853.6 eV. By means of high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) we identified some nanocrystalline regions belonging to CoSi 2, Ni 2 Si and NiSi 2 structures. We also appreciate that the resulting films are of a polycrystalline nature.