Amorphous Phase Formation and Recrystallization in Ion-Implanted Silicides

Abstract
Ion implantation induced phase transformations and recrystallization during post-annealing in CoSi2, CrSi2, and Pd2Si are studied. All three silicides are found to reorder at about 1/3 the melting point of the silicide. We speculate that ion-implanted silicides recrystallize by the same mechanism and that amorphous phases produced by implantation are unstable rather than metastable.