Morphological stability and specific resistivity of sub-10 nm silicide films of Ni1−xPtx on Si substrate

This letter studies the morphological stability and specific resistivity of sub-10 nm silicide films of Ni, Ni0.95Pt0.05, and Ni0.9Pt0.1 formed on Si(100) substrate. When the deposited metal films are below 1 to 4 nm in thickness depending on the Pt content, the resultant silicide films tend to become epitaxially aligned to the Si substrate and hence exhibit an extraordinary morphological stability up to 800 °C. The presence of Pt in the silicides increases the film resistivity through alloy scattering, but alleviates, owing to a reduced electron mean free path, the frequently encountered sharp increase in resistivity in the sub-10 nm regime.