Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2011
The reaction of a metal film with polycrystalline silicon to form a metal silicide has been shown to occur very rapidly when using cw lamp annealing in contrast to conventional furnace annealing. The faster reaction kinetics implies a more efficient energy coupling (radiative heating) versus the conductive/convective heat transfer processes which dominate furnace annealing. From Rutherford backscattering determinations of the thickness of PtSi formed as a function of anneal time (t), we have found the relationship to be linear in t with growth rates in the rangg 10−7–10−6 cm/sec (10 – 100Å/sec) for the temperature range 375 – 450° C. From these data the activation energy for the formation of PtSi was calculated to be 1.8± 0.2eV for cw lamp annealing, in reasonable agreement with literature values from conventional furnace annealing experiments.