Post-annealing effect on the microstructure and photoluminescence properties of the ion beam synthesized FeSi2 precipitates in Si

Microstructure and nanomechanical properties of Fe+ implanted silicon

“…Annealing at 1000 • C results also (as expected) in the recrystallization of Si but this time the iron silicide that forms is ␣-FeSi 2 . This change, at least partial, from the orthorhombic ␤-FeSi 2 , that forms at lower temperature, to the tetragonal ␣-FeSi 2 , that forms at the higher temperature is in agreement with what can be expected from the analysis of the Fe-Si equilibrium phase diagram [22], where the allotropic transition from ␤ to ␣ phase occurs at ≈937 • C. Nevertheless, the results obtained in this work confirms that the ␣-FeSi 2 can be retained at room temperature, at least partially, as previously suggested by other authors [11,23]. Also it is interesting to note that in the range of fluences used in this work (two orders of magnitude) the stoichiometry of the iron silicide that forms upon annealing is FeSi 2 .…”

“…Namely, implantation of Si with different ions has been widely used as a modifying root for the surface properties, and different authors have reported results on the implantation of Si with Cr [5], C [6][7][8], N [6,7], Ne [8,9] and Ar [8,10], among other elements. Although some authors have reported the implantation of Si with Fe + [11,12], the main concern of these previous works has been the influence of Fe in the electronic behavior of Si. As far as the authors know, no attempts to characterize the nanomechanical surface properties of Si implanted with Fe + , and its relation with the formed microstructure, has yet been made, in spite of the fact that the implantation of Si with Fe ions can be potentially beneficial due to the possibility of formation of hard and stiff iron silicides.…”

Nanoscale triboactivity of functionalized c-Si surfaces by Fe+ion implantation

“…However, more research is needed to prove that the ion implantation process can be used as a solution for the contact-based operation MEMS devices. Although some authors have reported the implantation of Si with Fe + ions [17,18], as far as the authors know, no attempt to characterize the nanomechanical properties of functionalized Si surfaces, namely their nanotribological response, has yet been made.…”