Deposition of molybdenum silicide film bp reactive sputtering

Recently, metal silicides have been noticed as a gate and an interconnection for the fabrication of high performances MOS devices. In this paper, a new method of depositing molybdenum slicide films is presented, in which the films are deposited by the reactive sputtering of a Mo target in a mixture of argon and silane. Using a mass spectrometer, it was confirmed that most of the silane was decomposed by applying a sputtering power above 0.6 kW. The crystal structure and chemical composition of the films have been determined by X-ray diffraction and an Auger electron spectrometer, respectively. It was found that the Si/Mo atomic ratio of the deposited films could change in the range 0.026 to 1.9 by controlling the silane partial pressure and the sputtering power. It was possible to obtain the Mo3Si, Mo5Si3 and MoSi2 structures by this method. On increasing Si/Mo atomic ratio in the range 0.026 to 1.9, the electrical resistivity of the films increase gradually. (author)