Growth Of Low Resistive Nickel Mono-Silicide Phase Under Low Energy Si Ion Irradiation At Room Temperature

Nickel mono-silicide (NiSi) is considered as a promising material for developing low resistance contacts in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. In the present work, we report the effect of Ni film thickness on orientation control of low resistive Nickel mono-silicide (NiSi) phase formation using low energy ion irradiation at room temperature. In order to study the effect of Ni film thickness on NiSi phase formation, the Ni films of thicknesses 30 nm and 60 nm were deposited on Si (111) substrate using thermal evaporation technique in a high vacuum chamber. The as prepared Ni/Si samples were then irradiated via 120 keV Si ions with different fluences of 7 x 1014, 1 x 1015, 3 x 1015 and 7 x 1015 ions-cm-2 at room temperature. The x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy measurements clearly confirm the formation of mono-silicide phase. The composition of the NiSi phase is determined by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry measurements. The crystallinity of NiSi phase has been observed to be better for 60 nm Ni film as compared to the 30 nm Ni film on Si substrate. Most of the NiSi crystallites are found to be oriented in (103) lattice plane. The resistivity and sheet resistance of the NiSi/Si films are found to be very low. The role of composition of Ni and Si in NiSi phase on resistivity and sheet resistance of the films has been investigated carefully. The detailed mechanisms behind the above observations have been discussed in the paper.