The effect of amorphous silicon capping on titanium during TiSi2 formation by RTA

Abstract

Thin film reactions of the Ti/(1 0 0)Si structure and the amorphous-Si/Ti/(1 0 0)Si structure are performed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) in argon at temperatures of 500–800° C. Auger depth profiling shows that the as-deposited titanium film of the Ti/(1 0 0)Si structure and the as-deposited amorphous silicon (a-Si) film of the a-Si/Ti/(1 0 0)Si structure exhibit a roughly exponential oxygen distribution decreasing from the surface when exposed to air. An electronic spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA) shows that the oxygen in the a-Si film forms Si02 and the oxygen in the titanium film forms titanium oxide. For the Ti/(1 0 0)Si structure, the oxygen tends to be redistributed uniformly throughout the titanium film near the onset of silicide formation during RTA. As silicide formation progresses, the redistributed oxygen is snowplowed back toward the surface owing to oxygen solubility difference between Ti and TiSi2. Consequently, the oxygen concentration in the unreacted titanium layer increases. This increased oxygen concentration retards the silicide growth even though there remains an unreacted titanium layer. The oxygen redistribution in the titanium film correlates well with the rapid increases in the sheet resistance near the onset of silicide formation. When a-Si is sputter-deposited sequentially on the titanium film without breaking the vacuum, the oxygen in a-Si is not redistributed during RTA. Thus there is no rapid increase in the sheet resistance, and the saturated sheet resistance is lower than that of Ti/(1 0 0)Si structure. The reason is that the conversion of deposited titanium film into TiSi2 is made completely because the a-Si film on the titanium film prevents oxygen infiltration into the titanium film.