Directed growth of nickel silicide nanowires

Abstract

Deposition of nickel silicide nanowires has been achieved in the temperature range of 320 to 420°C by decomposition of silane on nickel surfaces. The substrates consisted of Ni foils and thin Ni films (ϳ10-100 nm) evaporated on 1-m-thick layers of SiO 2 predeposited on Si wafers. Nanowire growth between two metal pads was achieved with aid of an electric field. It was found that thinner diameter nanowires were produced at low temperatures and that the density of the nanowires was dependent on the reactor pressure. The current-voltage relationship of these nanowires has also been examined.

Nickel Silicide Nanowire Growth and Applications

“…The low growth temperature from 320 to 420 °C is accomplished by the decomposition of silane gas on Ni surfaces to make different composition (NiSi, Ni 2 Si, and Ni 3 Si 2 ) of nanowires (Decker et al, 2004). Similar growth was also reported but Ni gradient was appeared through a nanowires.…”

“…Other results on NiSi nanowires were reported as about 370 µΩ·cm from Ti/Au deposition . or nonlinear high resistance characteristics from Pt deposition (Dong et al, 2005;Decker et al, 2004) implying that there is an effect of foreign metal use or poor adhesion between electrodes and nanowire. The common method by others to characterize a nanoscale structure is to detach it to an insulation layer, such as SiO 2 , then make contacts above it.…”

“…In the fabrication aspects, a good electric nanoscale emitter is highly desirable. Silicides of Ni, Co, Ti have been utilized to be contact materials in Si technologies due to the compatibility to Si (Kim et al, 2007b(Kim et al, , 2007c(Kim et al, , 2008a and low resistance driving intensive interests on forming a silicide nanowires (Wang et al, 2007;Decker et al, 2004;Kim et al, 2005aKim et al, , 2005bKim et al, , 2006aKim et al, , 2007a in applications of a nanoscale interconnection (Kim et al, 2005a) and a microscopy tip (Yoon et al, 1999). The field emission measurements of Ni silicide nanowires grown on a SiO 2 -coated Si and a tungsten substrates were performed in a vacuum of 10 -7 Torr.…”

Formation of Silicon Nanowires by CVD Using Gold Catalysts at Low Temperatures

“…Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) are considered attractive for micro-electronics, [1][2][3][4] optoelectronics, 5,6) micro-chemical sensors, 1) and micro-component devices 7) due to their quantum confinement effects and peculiar structures with a high aspect ratio in nanosize. SiNWs have been formed using various methods, such as laser ablation, 8) thermal evaporation, 9,10) solid reaction, 11) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD).…”

The Texture of Thin NiSi Films and Its Effect on Agglomeration

“…They are typically used as contacting materials on gate, source and drain regions in the CMOS process and also show promise in new applications such as fully silicided (FUSI) gates [4], and nano-wires [5]. Historically, three silicides have been used in micro-electronics as contacting materials, due to their low resistivity: initially, TiSi 2 was used, but due to the difficulty of growing the low resistivity C54 phase of TiSi 2 in narrow lines, the transition to CoSi 2 was made.…”