Effect of High-Temperature Annealing on Epitaxially Grown Ru Silicide Thin Films

Abstract

Epitaxial growth was carried out to grow Ruthenium (Ru) silicide films. Films were grown on Si (100) substrate utilizing molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) method. Firstly, the low-temperature Si buffer layer was grown at relatively low temperature of 400 °C to accommodate lattice strain and Ru silicides epilayers were grown at 750 °C. Secondly, the effect of high-temperature annealing of 1050 °C on the grown film was depicted. To investigate the surface morphology as well as microstructural characteristics atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electron microscopy TEM, and x-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements were employed. Only the peaks of the Ru2Si3 phase were recorded in XRD measurements. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to reveal the chemical and electronic composition of Ru silicide films, and a detectable change in the composition ratio toward the formation of Ru2Si3 was established after annealing. Additionally, Raman spectroscopy was utilized to evaluate the characteristics modes of entity phases.