Characterisation of silicide thin films for semiconductor and nanotechnology electronics

Nanotechnology devices require low resistance contacts, which can be fabricated by the incorporation of silicide thin films. This chapter discusses in detail the study of silicide thin films using a suite of materials characterisation tools. This silicides of interest in this study were titanium silicide (TiSi2) and nickel silicide (NiSi2), given their low resistivity and low barrier heights to both n-type and p-type silicon. The silicide thin films were formed by vacuum annealing metal thin films on silicon substrates. Silicide thin films formed from metal films deposited by DC magnetron sputtering and electron beam evaporation were compared. The composition, crystallographic orientation, and morphology of these thin films were studied using spectroscopy (AES, SIMS, RBS, in situ, Raman spectroscopy), diffraction (Bragg-Brentano and glancing angle XRD, RHEED), and microscopy techniques (TEM, SEM, and AFM).