Interfacial reaction and formation mechanism of epitaxial CoSi2 by rapid thermal annealing in Co/Ti/Si(100) system

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Abstract
A ternary compound of Co3Ti2Si is suggested as a reaction barrier for the formation of epitaxial CoSi2 in the Co/Ti/Si system when adopting the rapid thermal annealing process. It controls Co diffusion to the Si substrate, followed by formation of epitaxial CoSi2. After the epitaxial CoSi2 was formed, the interfacial morphology of the upper layer/ CoSi2 interface was very different according to silicidation temperature, that is, the interface was planar at 800 °C, but rough at 900 °C. This was attributed to the reaction between the upper layer consisting of Co–Ti–Si and the CoSi2 layer at 900 °C, which resulted in Ti-rich precipitates at the surface. The Ti-rich precipitates acted as a diffusion sink of dopant, thus, the leakage current density for the silicidation temperature of 900 °C was much higher than that for the temperature of 800 °C. These results suggest that the silicidation temperature is one of the most critical factors in determining the leakage current of the p+n junction diode.