Solid phase growth and properties of Mg2Si films on Si(111)

Growth, stability and decomposition of Mg2Si ultra-thin films on Si (100)

“…This tendency could give insights regarding the existence of protrusions in the Mg2Si layer. Our present report of a continuous thin silicide film, nevertheless, remains quite different from the Mg2Si nanometric crystallites that were observed elsewhere by solid-phase reaction of 1 Mg nm on Si(111) on hot silicon [10]. Whereas similar nanometric islands are formed after thermally enhanced reaction of 1 Mg ML (i.e.…”

“…Mainly due to a sticking coefficient of Mg on Si that drastically decreases as the substrate temperature is raised (down to zero at 200°C with no more Mg condensation [9]), only a few groups have reported the successful formation of magnesium silicide thin films [10]or features [11] by reactive adsorption of magnesium on silicon substrates held at moderate temperatures. In order to limit desorption while accessing a wider range of processing temperatures, thermal codeposition of Mg with Si has also been explored, namely on hot Si(100) [12] and Si(111) [10] substrates held at 200°C. Implying potential crossover reactions between the codeposited species and the Si surface atoms, codeposition was mainly used for growing thicker magnesium silicide films ranging from tens to hundreds of nanometers, where no accurate control of the thickness was expressly needed.…”

Polycrystalline Mg2Si thin films: A theoretical investigation of their electronic transport properties

“…Although an abundant literature exists on the fabrication of Mg 2 Si thin films [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], their thermoelectric properties have not been experimentally investigated. Only a few theoretical studies have been reported on the calculations of Mg 2 Si thin films, either dealing with the structural and electronic characteristics [15], or the thermoelectric properties of the films [16].…”

Solid‐phase growth of Mg2Si by annealing in inert gas atmosphere

“…There is a difficulty, however, in the synthesis of high-quality Mg 2 Si thin films by PVD due to a large difference in thermodynamic properties between Si and Mg. Various methods for making Mg 2 Si thin films have been proposed: Vantomme et al [1] tried a co-deposition of Mg and Si by MBE on a heated Si substrate.…”

“…They found that the sticking probability of Mg atoms on Si was almost zero at temperature higher than 200 °C and the growth rate of the Mg 2 Si film is limited by the deposition rate of Si. Galkin et al [2] synthesized Mg 2 Si from Mg/Si multilayers by using solidphase inter-diffusion of Mg and Si at elevated temperature. Hu et al [3] used reaction between a heated Si substrate and Mg vapor.…”