Interdiffusion and growth of chromium silicide at the interface of Cr/Si(As) system during rapid thermal annealing

In this work, the solid-state reaction between a thin film of chromium and silicon has been studied using Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and the sheet resistance measurements. The thickness of 100 nm chromium layer has been deposited by electronic bombardment on Si (100) substrates, part of them had previously been implanted with arsenic ions of 1015 at/cm2 doses and an energy of 100 keV. The samples were heat treated under rapid thermal annealing at 500 °C for time intervals ranging from 15 to 60 s. The rapid thermal annealing leads to a reaction at the interface Cr/Si inducing the formation and the growth of the unique silicide CrSi2, but no other phase can be detected. For samples implanted with arsenic, the saturation value of the sheet resistance is approximately 1.5 times higher than for the non-implanted case.