title: Low-Temperature Wet Conformal Nickel Silicide Deposition for Transistor Technology through an Organometallic Approach.
abstract: The race for performance of integrated circuits is nowadays facing a downscale limitation. To overpass this nanoscale limit, modern transistors with complex geometries have flourished, allowing higher performance and energy efficiency. Accompanying this breakthrough, challenges toward high-performance devices have emerged on each significant step, such as the inhomogeneous coverage issue and thermal-induced short circuit issue of metal silicide formation. In this respect, we developed a two-step organometallic approach for nickel silicide formation under near-ambient temperature. Transmission electron and atomic force microscopy show the formation of a homogeneous and conformal layer of NiSixon pristine silicon surface. Post-treatment decreases the carbon content to a level similar to what is found for the original wafer (∼6%). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy also reveals an increasing ratio of Si content in the layer after annealing, which is shown to be NiSi2according to X-ray absorption spectroscopy investigation on a Si nanoparticle model. I-V characteristic fitting reveals that this NiSi2layer exhibits a competitive Schottky barrier height of 0.41 eV and series resistance of 8.5 Ω, thus opening an alternative low-temperature route for metal silicide formation on advanced devices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich , Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tsung-Han
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich , Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tigran
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Margossian
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, EPF Lausanne , CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: De Marchi
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, EPF Lausanne , CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Maxime
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Thammasack
authors.affiliation: Brick Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University , West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2057, United States.
authors.forename: Dmitry
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zemlyanov
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich , Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sudhir
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich , Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jakub
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jagielski
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich , Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Li-Qing
authors.initials: LQ
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich , Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Chih-Jen
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5258-3485
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Shih
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich , Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Renato
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zenobi
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, EPF Lausanne , CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: De Micheli
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich , Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Baudouin
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering , University of Utah , Salt Lake City, Utah, 84112, United States.
authors.forename: Pierre-Emmanuel
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Gaillardon
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich , Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9660-3890
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Copéret
keywords: nanoparticle; nickel silicide; one-pot synthesis; organometallic approach; semiconductor; surface investigation