• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.95-100
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• 2004

This paper reports a potential problem in the electrical performance of the silicide film to silicon contacts with respect to the scaling trend in integrated circuit (IC) devices. The effects of elastic strain on the agglomeration of the coherent silicide film embedded in an infinite matrix are studied employing continuum linear elasticity and finite-difference numerical method. The interface atomic diffusion is taken to be the dominant transport mechanism where both capillarity and elastic strain are considered for the driving forces. Under plane strain condition with elastically homogeneous and anisotropic system with cubic symmetry, the dilatational misfit and the tetragonal misfit in the direction parallel to the film thickness are considered. The numerical results on the shape evolution agree with the known trend that the equilibrium aspect ratio of the film increases with the elastic strain intensity. When the elastic strain intensity is taken to be only a function of the film size, the flat film morphology with a large aspect ratio becomes increasingly unstable since the equilibrium aspect ratio decreases, as the film scales. The shape evolution results in a large decrease in contact to silicon area, and may deteriorate the electrical performances.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.159-168
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• 2008

Thermally-evaporated 10 nm-Ni/1 nm-Ru/(30 nm or 70 nm-poly)Si structures were fabricated in order to investigate the thermal stability of Ru-inserted nickel monosilicide. The silicide samples underwent rapid thermal anne aling at $300{\sim}1,100^{\circ}C$ for 40 seconds. Silicides suitable for the salicide process were formed on the top of the single crystal and polycrystalline silicon substrates mimicking actives and gates. The sheet resistance was measured using a four-point probe. High resolution X-ray diffraction and Auger depth profiling were used for phase and chemical composition analysis, respectively. Transmission electron microscope and scanning probe microscope(SPM) were used to determine the cross-sectional structure and surface roughness. The silicide, which formed on single crystal silicon and 30 nm polysilicon substrate, could defer the transformation of $Ni_2Si $i and $NiSi_2 $, and was stable at temperatures up to $1,100^{\circ}C$ and $1,100^{\circ}C$, respectively. Regarding microstructure, the nano-size NiSi preferred phase was observed on single crystalline Si substrate, and agglomerate phase was shown on 30 nm-thick polycrystalline Si substrate, respectively. The silicide, formed on 70 nm polysilicon substrate, showed high resistance at temperatures >$700^{\circ}C$ caused by mixed microstructure. Through SPM analysis, we confirmed that the surface roughness increased abruptly on single crystal Si substrate while not changed on polycrystalline substrate. The Ru-inserted nickel monosilicide could maintain a low resistance in wide temperature range and is considered suitable for the nano-thick silicide process.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.250-253
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• 2007

An evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is most widely used to make high-efficiency silicon solar cells, however, the system is not cost effective due to expensive materials and vacuum techniques. Commercial solar cells with screen-printed contacts formed by using Ag paste suffer from a low fill factor and a high shading loss because of high contact resistance and low aspect ratio. Low-cost Ni and Cu metal contacts have been formed by using electroless plating and electroplating techniques to replace the Ti/Pd/Ag and screen-printed Ag contacts. Ni/Cu alloy is plated on a silicon substrate by electro-deposition of the alloy from an acetate electrolyte solution, and nickel-silicide formation at the interface between the silicon and the nickel enhances stability and reduces the contact resistance. It was, therefore, found that nickel-silicide was suitable for high-efficiency solar cell applications. The Ni contact was formed on the front grid pattern by electroless plating followed by anneal ing at $380{\sim}400^{\circ}C$ for $15{\sim}30$ min at $N_{2}$ gas to allow formation of a nickel-silicide in a tube furnace or a rapid thermal processing(RTP) chamber because nickel is transformed to NiSi at $380{\sim}400^{\circ}C$. The Ni plating solution is composed of a mixture of $NiCl_{2}$ as a main nickel source. Cu was electroplated on the Ni layer by using a light induced plating method. The Cu electroplating solution was made up of a commercially available acid sulfate bath and additives to reduce the stress of the copper layer. The Ni/Cu contact was found to be well suited for high-efficiency solar cells and was successfully formed by using electroless plating and electroplating, which are more cost effective than vacuum evaporation. In this paper, we investigated low-cost Ni/Cu contact formation by electroless and electroplating for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.11
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• pp.762-769
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• 2008

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon(a-Si : H) layers, 120 nm and 50 nm in thickness, were deposited on 200 $nm-SiO_2$/single-Si substrates by inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition(ICP-CVD). Subsequently, 30 nm-Ni layers were deposited by E-beam evaporation. Finally, 30 nm-Ni/120 nm a-Si : H/200 $nm-SiO_2$/single-Si and 30 nm-Ni/50 nm a-Si:H/200 $nm-SiO_2$/single-Si were prepared. The prepared samples were annealed by rapid thermal annealing(RTA) from $200^{\circ}C$ to $500^{\circ}C$ in $50^{\circ}C$ increments for 30 minute. A four-point tester, high resolution X-ray diffraction(HRXRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and scanning probe microscopy(SPM) were used to examine the sheet resistance, phase transformation, in-plane microstructure, cross-sectional microstructure, and surface roughness, respectively. The nickel silicide on the 120 nm a-Si:H substrate showed high sheet resistance($470{\Omega}/{\Box}$) at T(temperature) < $450^{\circ}C$ and low sheet resistance ($70{\Omega}/{\Box}$) at T > $450^{\circ}C$. The high and low resistive regions contained ${\zeta}-Ni_2Si$ and NiSi, respectively. In case of microstructure showed mixed phase of nickel silicide and a-Si:H on the residual a-Si:H layer at T < $450^{\circ}C$ but no mixed phase and a residual a-Si:H layer at T > $450^{\circ}C$. The surface roughness matched the phase transformation according to the silicidation temperature. The nickel silicide on the 50 nm a-Si:H substrate had high sheet resistance(${\sim}1k{\Omega}/{\Box}$) at T < $400^{\circ}C$ and low sheet resistance ($100{\Omega}/{\Box}$) at T > $400^{\circ}C$. This was attributed to the formation of ${\delta}-Ni_2Si$ at T > $400^{\circ}C$ regardless of the siliciation temperature. An examination of the microstructure showed a region of nickel silicide at T < $400^{\circ}C$ that consisted of a mixed phase of nickel silicide and a-Si:H without a residual a-Si:H layer. The region at T > $400^{\circ}C$ showed crystalline nickel silicide without a mixed phase. The surface roughness remained constant regardless of the silicidation temperature. Our results suggest that a 50 nm a-Si:H nickel silicide layer is advantageous of the active layer of a thin film transistor(TFT) when applying a nano-thick layer with a constant sheet resistance, surface roughness, and ${\delta}-Ni_2Si$ temperatures > $400^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1988.07a
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• pp.387-390
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• 1988

The increases in the packing density and the resulting shrinkage of silicon integrated circuit dimensions led to the investigation and successful of the deposited silicide layers as the gate and interconnection and contact metallization. In this paper evaporated Co films on n-Si have been rapid thermal annealed in $N_2$ambient at temperature of $400^{\circ}C-1000^{\circ}C$. The Co silicide formation is characterized by sheet resistance (4PP). Also, silicide growth rate and its reproductivity has been examined by SEM.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 1998.06a
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• pp.87-91
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• 1998

In this paper, We analyzed the current-voltage characteristics with n-type silicon substrates concentration and temperature variations (Room temperature, 50$^{\circ}C$, 75$^{\circ}C$) in platinum silicide and silicon junction. The electrical parameters of measurement are turn-on voltage, saturation current, ideality factor, barrier height, dynamic resistance in forward bias and reverse breakdown voltage according to variations of junction concentration of substrates and measurement temperature variations. As a result, the forward turn-on voltage, reverse breakdown voltage, barrier height and dynamic resistance were decreased but saturation currents and ideality factor were increased by substrates increased concentration variations in platinum silicide and n-silicon junction. In increased measurement temperature (RT, 50$^{\circ}C$, 75$^{\circ}C$), the extracted electrical parameter values of characteristics were rises by increased temperature variations according to the forward and reverse bias.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.301-305
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• 2005

We fabricated nickel silicide layers on whole non-patterned wafers from $p-Si(100)SiO_2(200nm)$/poly-Si(70 nm)mn(40 nm) structure by 40 sec rapid thermal annealing of $500\~900^{\circ}C$. The sheet resistance, cross-sectional microstructure, surface roughness, and phase analysis were investigated by a four point probe, a field emission scanning electron microscope, a scanning probe microscope, and an X-ray diffractometer, respectively. Sheet resistance was as small as $7\Omega/sq$. even at the elevated temperature of $900^{\circ}C$. The silicide thickness and surface roughness increased as silicidation temperature increased. We confirmed the nickel silicides iron thin nickel/poly-silicon structures would be a mixture of NiSi and $NiSi_2$ even at the $NiSi_2$ stable temperature region.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.10-10
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• 2008

Silicide is inevitable for CMOSFETs to reduce RC delay by reducing the sheet resistance of gate and source/drain regions. Ni-silicide is a promising material which can be used for the 65nm CMOS technologies. Ni-silicide was proposed in order to make up for the weak points of Co-silicide and Ti-silicide, such as the high consumption of silicon and the line width limitation. Low resistivity NiSi can be formed at low temperature ($\sim500^{\circ}C$) with only one-step heat treat. Ni silicide also has less dependence of sheet resistance on line width and less consumption of silicon because of low resistivity NiSi phase. However, the low thermal stability of the Ni-silicide is a major problem for the post process implementation, such as metalization or ILD(inter layer dielectric) process, that is, it is crucial to prevent both the agglomeration of mono-silicide and its transformation into $NiSi_2$. To solve the thermal immune problem of Ni-silicide, various studies, such as capping layer and inter layer, have been worked. In this paper, the Ni-silicide utilizing Pd stacked layer (Pd/Ni/TiN) was studied for highly thermal immune nano-scale CMOSFETs technology. The proposed structure was compared with NiITiN structure and showed much better thermal stability than Ni/TiN.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.195-200
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• 2007

We fabricated thermally-evaporated 10 nm-Ni/70 w-Poly-Si/200 $nm-SiO_2/Si$ and $10nm-Ni_{0.5}Co_{0.5}/70$ nm-Poly-Si/200 $nm-SiO_2/Si$ structures to investigate the microstructure of nickel monosilicide at the elevated temperatures required fur annealing. Silicides underwent rapid anneal at the temperatures of $600{\sim}1100^{\circ}C$ for 40 seconds. Silicides suitable for the salicide process formed on top of the polycrystalline silicon substrate mimicking the gates. A four-point tester was used to investigate the sheet resistances. A transmission electron microscope and an Auger depth profile scope were employed for the determination of cross sectional microstructure and thickness. 20nm thick nickel cobalt composite silicides on polycrystalline silicon showed low resistance up to $900^{\circ}C$, while the conventional nickle silicide showed low resistance below $900^{\circ}C$. Through TEM analysis, we confirmed that the 70nm-thick nickel cobalt composite silicide showed a unique silicon-silicide mixing at the high silicidation temperature of $1000^{\circ}C$. We identified $Ni_3Si_2,\;CoSi_2$ phase at $700^{\circ}C$ using an X-ray diffractometer. Auger depth profile analysis also supports the presence of this mixed microstructure. Our result implies that our newly proposed NiCo composite silicide from NiCo alloy films process may widen the thermal process window for the salicide process and be suitable for nano-thick silicides.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.11
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• pp.755-761
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• 2008

We fabricated thermally evaporated 10 nm-Ni/1 nm-Ir/(poly)Si films to investigate the energy saving property of silicides formed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at the temperature range of $300{\sim}1200^{\circ}C$ for 40 seconds. Moreover, we fabricated 100 nm-thick ITO/(poly)Si films with an rf-sputter as references. A transmission electron microscope (TEM) and an X-ray diffractometer were used to determine cross-sectional microstructure and phase changes. A UV-VIS-NIR and FT-IR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) were employed for near-IR and middle-IR absorbance. Through TEM analysis, we confirmed 20~65 nm-thick silicide layers formed on the single and polycrystalline silicon substrates. Ir-inserted nickel silicide on single crystalline substrate showed almost the same absorbance in near IR region as well as ITO, but Ir-inserted nickel silicide on polycrystalline substrate, which had the uniform absorbance in specific region, showed better absorbance in near IR region than ITO. The Ir-inserted nickel silicide on polycrystalline substrate particularly showed better absorbance in middle IR region than ITO. The results imply that nano-thick Ir-inserted nickel silicides may have excellent absorbing capacity in near-IR and middle-IR region.