Formation of stable titanium germanosilicide thin films on Si1-xGex

The sequential deposition of strained Si1-xGex with concentrations x=0.20 and 0.30, amorphous silicon, and titanium on Si (100) after annealing at 700 deg. C leads to the formation of a C54 Ti(Si1-yGey)2/Si1-xGex bilayer, the phase formation and interface stability of which are studied. The use of an amorphous layer of Si is employed to eliminate or decrease the formation of germanium-rich Si1-zGez alloy precipitates found in the solid-phase reaction of Ti and Si1-xGex. It has been proposed that the precipitation phenomenon was driven by differences in the enthalpy of formation as a function of concentration in the Ti(Si1-yGey)2 layer, resulting from the enthalpy difference between TiSi2 and TiGe2 compounds, both of which are assumed to be completely miscible with one another. Layers of amorphous silicon of varying thicknesses were incorporated between a 300-A ring Ti layer and the strained Si1-xGex substrate layer to achieve Ti(Si1-yGey)2 films that are in equilibrium with the Si1-xGex substrate. The use of amorphous silicon layers of varying thicknesses indicated that Ti(Si1-yGey)2/Si1-xGex films could be formed with the absence of germanium-rich precipitates at the grain boundaries, depending on the amorphous silicon layer thickness