title: Observation of iron silicide formation by plan-view transmission electron microscopy.
abstract: The formation and the phase transitions of iron silicide by solid-phase epitaxy have been investigated by means of plan-view transmission electron microscopy, which enables us to observe a clean interface between Fe and Si. Layers of Fe were deposited on Si (100) at room temperature in an ultrahigh vacuum chamber. The sample was annealed in the electron microscope at a temperature between 673 and 1073 K. After annealing at 673 K, FeSi crystallites were formed with various orientations. When the annealing temperature was increased to 973 K, we found that the crystallites suddenly started to coalesce into grains of several hundreds of nanometers in size and polycrystalline beta-FeSi2 was formed. These phase transitions were also confirmed with electron energy-loss spectroscopy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, Tokai, Ibaraki 319-1195, Japan. IGARASHI.Shinichi@nims.go.jp
authors.forename: Shinichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Igarashi
authors.forename: Masaharu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haraguchi
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Aihara
authors.forename: Takeru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.forename: Kiichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hojou
mesh_terms: D003461:Crystallography; D058085:Iron Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D044367:Phase Transition; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry*; D017655:Silicon Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D058085:Iron Compounds; D017655:Silicon Compounds; D012825:Silicon