Observation of iron silicide formation by plan-view transmission electron microscopy

The formation and the phase transitions of iron silicide by solid-phase epitaxy have been investigated by means of plan-view transmission electron microscopy, which enables us to observe a clean interface between Fe and Si. Layers of Fe were deposited on Si (100) at room temperature in an ultrahigh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of electron microscopy Vol. 53; no. 3; p. 223
Main Authors Igarashi, Shinichi, Haraguchi, Masaharu, Aihara, Jun, Saito, Takeru, Yamaguchi, Kenji, Yamamoto, Hiroyuki, Hojou, Kiichi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Japan 01.06.2004
Subjects
Crystallography
Iron Compounds - chemistry
Microscopy, Electron
Phase Transition
Silicon - chemistry
Silicon Compounds - chemistry
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Summary:The formation and the phase transitions of iron silicide by solid-phase epitaxy have been investigated by means of plan-view transmission electron microscopy, which enables us to observe a clean interface between Fe and Si. Layers of Fe were deposited on Si (100) at room temperature in an ultrahigh vacuum chamber. The sample was annealed in the electron microscope at a temperature between 673 and 1073 K. After annealing at 673 K, FeSi crystallites were formed with various orientations. When the annealing temperature was increased to 973 K, we found that the crystallites suddenly started to coalesce into grains of several hundreds of nanometers in size and polycrystalline beta-FeSi2 was formed. These phase transitions were also confirmed with electron energy-loss spectroscopy.
ISSN:0022-0744
1477-9986
DOI:10.1093/jmicro/53.3.223