Abstract
Interfacial reactions of Gd on both (111) and (001)Si have been investigated. An amorphous interlayer (a-interlayer) is formed at the initial stage of reactions of RE metal thin films on Si systems. The growth of amorphous phase was followed by the nucleation of the crystalline silicide at the a-interlayer/Si interface. Both hexagonal GdSi 2-x (h-GdSi 2-x ) and orthorhombic GdSi 2 (o-GdSi 2 ) were observed to form in (001) and (111) samples. Crystalline defects such as vacancy ordering and stacking faults were observed and analyzed.