Rod-like β-FeSi 2 phase grown on Si (111) substrate

Abstract

Pure Fe with coverage of 0.5–2.0 nm was deposited on Si (111) 7×7 surfaces by reactive deposition epitaxy (RDE) in an integrated ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) system. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) confirmed that the as-deposited epitaxial phase exhibits rod-like and equilateral triangular morphology. The as-deposited phase was identified as c-FeSi 2 by electron diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. It was found that there exists lattice distortion in epitaxial c-FeSi 2 phase. Upon annealing at 1073 K, the metastable c-FeSi 2 transforms into equilibrium β-FeSi 2 phase, the latter inherits completely the morphology of c-FeSi 2 phase. Based on RDE and subsequent annealing, a new fabrication technique to grow rod-like semiconducting β-FeSi 2 on a Si substrate has been proposed in the present work.