Chemical and structural characterization of Co-Ni silicide thin films

By means of pulsed laser deposition we prepared Co-Ni/p-Si thin films upon a Si(100) substrates. Samples were thermally treated in vacuum in order to promote silicide formation. Rom X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis, we detected chemical shifts of the Co2p and Ni2p transitions, characteristic of silicide binding energy, at the respective ranges of 778.3-778.6 and 853.2-853.6 eV. By means of high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) we identified some nanocrystalline regions belonging to CoSi2, Ni2Si and NiSi2 structures. We also appreciate that the resulting films are of a polycrystalline nature