• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.389-393
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• 2004

The silicide layer used as a diffusion barrier in microelectronics is typically required to be below 50 nm-thick and, the same time, the silicides also need to have low contact resistance without agglomeration at high processing temperatures. We fabricated Si(100)/15 nm-Ni/15 nm-Co samples with a thermal evaporator, and annealed the samples for 40 seconds at temperatures ranging from $700^{\circ}C$ to $1100^{\circ}C$ using rapid thermal annealing. We investigated microstructural and compositional changes during annealing using transmission electron microscopy and auger electron spectroscopy. Sheet resistance of the annealed sample stack was measured with a four point probe. The sheet resistance measurements for our proposed Co/Ni composite silicide was below 8 $\Omega$/sq. even after annealing $1100^{\circ}C$, while conventional nickel-monosilicide showed abrupt phase transformation at $700^{\circ}C$. Microstructure and auger depth profiling showed that the silicides in our sample consisted of intermixed phases of $CoNiSi_{x}$ and NiSi. It was noticed that NiSi grew rapidly at the silicon interface with increasing annealing temperature without transforming into $NiSi_2$. Our results imply that Co/Ni composite silicide should have excellent high temperature stability even in post-silicidation processes.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.332-337
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• 2006

We prepared 100 nm-thick CoNi composite silicide on a 70 nm-thick polysilicon substrate. Composite silicide laye.s were formed by rapid thermal annealing(RTA) at the temperatures of $700^{\circ}C,\;900^{\circ}C,\;1000^{\circ}C$ for 40 seconds. A Focused ion beam (FIB) was used to make nano-patterns with the operation range of 30 kV and $1{\sim}100$ pA. We investigated the change of thickness, line width, and the slope angle of the silicide patterns by FIB. More easily made with the FIB process than with the conventional polycide process. We successfully fabricated sub-100nm etched patterns with FIB condition of 30kv-30pA. Our result implies that we may integrate nano patterns with our newly proposed CoNi composite silicides.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.656-662
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• 2006

We fabricated thermal evaporated 10 nm-$Ni_xCo_{1-x}$ (x=0.2, 0.5 and 0.8) /(poly)Si films to form nanothick cobalt nickel composite silicides by a rapid thermal annealing at $700{\sim}1100^{\circ}C$ for 40 seconds. A field emission scanning electron microscope and a micro-Raman spectrometer were employed for microstructure and silicon residual stress characterization, respectively. We observed self-aligned micro-pinholes on single crystal silicon substrates silicidized at $1100^{\circ}C$. Raman silicon peak shift indicates that the residual tensile strain of $10^{-3}$ in single crystal silicon substrates existed after the silicide process. We propose thermal stress from silicide exothermic reaction and high temperature silicidation annealing may cause the pinholes. Those pinholes are expected to be avoided by lowering the silicidation temperature. Our results imply that we may use our newly proposed composite silicides to induce the appropriate strained layer in silicion substrates.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.25-32
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• 2007

We investigated the silicide reaction stability between 10 nm-Col-xNix alloy films and silicon substrates with the existence of 4 nm-thick natural oxide layers. We thermally evaporated 10 nm-Col-xNix alloy films by varying $x=0.1{\sim}0.9$ on naturally oxidized single crystal and 70 nm-thick polycrystalline silicon substrates. The films structures were annealed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) from $600^{\circ}C$ to $1100^{\circ}C$ for 40 seconds with the purpose of silicidation. After the removal of residual metallic residue with sulfuric acid, the sheet resistance, microstructure, composition, and surface roughness were investigated using a four-point probe, a field emission scanning electron microscope, a field ion bean4 an X-ray diffractometer, and an Auger electron depth profiling spectroscope, respectively, to confirm the silicide reaction. The residual stress of silicon substrate was also analyzed using a micro-Raman spectrometer We report that the silicide reaction does not occur if natural oxides are present. Metallic oxide residues may be present on a polysilicon substrate at high silicidation temperatures. Huge residual stress is possible on a single crystal silicon substrate at high temperature, and these may result in micro-pinholes. Our results imply that the natural oxide layer removal process is of importance to ensure the successful completion of the silicide process with CoNi alloy films.