Abstract
Recently a number of silicides were grown epitaxially on silicon. It now appears that almost all transition metal silicides can be grown epitaxially on silicon. 1–6 Previous studies on the epitaxial growth of silicides on silicon were mostly on the growth of silicides on large area, undoped samples. Furnace annealings were usually performed to grow epitaxial silicides. 2–4 However, in device applications, silicides were often grown on laterally confined, ion implanted silicon. 2,7 In order to minimize dopant redistribution for shallow junction devices, rapid thermal annealing (RTA) has been increasingly used to activate the dopant and form the silicides. 8 In an effort to realize the practical applications of epitaxial silicides in microelectronics devices, the effects of lateral confinement, dopants, and rapid thermal annealing on the growth of epitaxial silicides on silicon have been investigated.