Scanning tunneling microscopy studies of the formation and coarsening of manganese silicides on Si(111)

作者：Zou, Zhi Qiang^*; Wang, Dan; Sun, Jing Jing; Liang, Jia Miao

来源：Journal of Applied Physics, 2010, 107(1): 014302.

DOI：10.1063/1.3270411

• Annealing temperatures
• Manganese silicide
• Number density
• Ostwald ripening mechanism
• Si substrates
• Silicide phase
• Solid phase epitaxial growth
• Threedimensional (3-d)

Solid-phase epitaxial growth of manganese silicides on a Si(111)-7 x 7 surface at temperatures between room temperature and similar to 750 degrees C has been studied using scanning tunneling microscopy. The as-deposited Mn film of similar to 0.6-1 ML shows an ordered honeycomb structure with each Mn cluster occupying a half of the 7 x 7 unit cell. The Mn clusters begin to react with the Si substrate to form silicides at similar to 250 degrees C. Two types of silicides, the three-dimensional (3D) and tabular islands, which correspond to Mn-rich silicides and monosilicide MnSi, respectively, coexist on the Si(111) surface at annealing temperatures between 250 and 500 degrees C. At 500 degrees C annealing, all 3D islands convert into tabular islands and MnSi is the only Mn silicide phase. Above 600 degrees C, the tabular islands convert into large 3D islands that are likely to be Si-rich manganese silicides. With increasing annealing temperature and time, the number density of silicide islands decreases, while the average size (area) of the remaining islands increases. The growth of large islands is a result of the dissolution of small ones, which can be understood in the context of Ostwald ripening mechanism.

• 出版日期2010-1-1
• 单位上海交通大学