Transmission electron microscopy studies on the lateral growth of nickel silicides

Abstract
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been utilized to study the nickel‐silicide growth in self‐supported lateral‐diffusion, thin‐film couples by overlapping deposited layers of Ni and Si between two silicon oxide deposited films. Energy‐dispersive x‐ray spectroscopy, microdiffraction, and selected area diffraction were used to identify the Ni‐silicide phases and their crystal structures. Long‐grain growth of Ni2Si, as a result of phase‐boundary migration induced by diffusion, was observed during in situ annealing between 500 and 750 °C in TEM. No preferred orientation or particular crystallographic relationship was found among the long grains.