Crystallization, resistivity and microstructure of metal–silicon thin-film alloys

Abstract

Amorphous thin-film silicides have been deposited at room temperature and their crystallization studied by in situ transmission electron microscopy and resistivity measurements. These procedures enabled the kinetics of crystallization and any additional transformations to be characterized by firstly measuring transformed volume fractions X _T (t) directly, secondly deducing X _T (t) from changes in resistivity and thirdly studying the nucleation rate and growth of individual particles.

A remarkable variety of crystallized microstructures, including needles and spheroids, and of types of phase transformation occurring in the process of heating, have been observed. Data referring to the Cr–Si, Ti–Si, W–Si and Pd–Si systems are presented. For the last-named system, the kinetics of the reversible phase transformation from PdSi to Pd₂Si have been investigated.