Fabrication of Epitaxial Silicides thin films by Combining Low-Energy Ion Beam Deposition and Silicon Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Abstract

AbstractWe have developed successfully the combined ion beam and molecular beam epitaxy (CIBMBE) system with a newly designed Knudsen cell for Si effusion. The CIBMBE system was applied to the epitaxial growth of Sil., Cx alloy thin films on Si using low-energy ( 100 – 300 eV ) C+ ion beam. Preliminary results on the characterization of the deposited films suggest high potential and reliability of the new Knudsen cell for Si effusion, as well as high ability of the CIBMBE method to produce thermally non-equilibrium materials. In addition, they indicate that the value of x decreases with increasing IC, which suggests that the selective sputtering for deposited C atoms by incident C+ ion beams takes place during CIBMBE processing. Precipitates of β-SiC were also found to be formed in the deposited films, whose amount was observed to increase with increasing IC.