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arXiv · 1110.5501

Erbium Silicide Growth in the Presence of Residual Oxygen

Nicolas Reckinger·Xiaohui Tang·Sylvie Godey·Emmanuel Dubois·Adam Laszcz·Jacek Ratajczak·Alexandru Vlad·Constantin Augustin Dutu·Jean-Pierre Raskin
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Abstract

The chemical changes of Ti/Er/n-Si(100) stacks evaporated in high vacuum and grown ex situ by rapid thermal annealing were scrutinized. The emphasis was laid on the evolution with the annealing temperature of (i) the Er-Si solid-state reaction and (ii) the penetration of oxygen into Ti and its subsequent interaction with Er. For that sake, three categories of specimens were analyzed: as-deposited, annealed at 300{\deg}C, and annealed at 600{\deg}C. It was found that the presence of residual oxygen into the annealing atmosphere resulted in a substantial oxidation of the Er film surface, irrespective of the annealing temperature. However, the part of the Er film in intimate contact with the Si bulk formed a silicide (amorphous at 300{\deg}C and crystalline at 600{\deg}C) invariably free of oxygen, as testified by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy depth profiling and Schottky barrier height extraction of 0.3 eV at 600{\deg}C. This proves that, even if Er is highly sensitive to oxygen contamination, the formation of low Schottky barrier Er silicide contacts on n-Si is quite robust. Finally, the production of stripped oxygen-free Er silicide was demonstrated after process optimization.

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Nicolas Reckinger, Xiaohui Tang, Sylvie Godey, Emmanuel Dubois, Adam Laszcz, Jacek Ratajczak, Alexandru Vlad, Constantin Augustin Dutu, Jean-Pierre Raskin. 2011-10-25. Erbium Silicide Growth in the Presence of Residual Oxygen. https://doi.org/10.1149/1.3585777

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