About the mechanism of formation and growth of the higher manganese silicide films on silicon

In the last years the great interest of scientists is focused on the study of higher manganese silicide films due to their high thermoelectric properties, good stability at high temperatures and combination with standard silicon planar technology. In this work formation and growth of the higher manganese suicide films were investigated. They were obtained by the deposition of flux of manganese atoms from the vapor phase on the silicon substrate surface and then by reactive diffusion between manganese atoms and silicon atoms from the substrate. These received results are compared with the data for the higher manganese suicide films grown by other methods. On the base of this analysis it is possible to suppose that the growth of the higher manganese silicide films by reactive diffusion method of manganese atoms from the vapor phase may be conditioned by mechanism of vapor-liquid-solid. This mechanism takes account of the fact that melting temperature of the small nucleus which size is about several nanometers is lower than the melting temperature of a bulk material. Besides, in contrast to other methods, the films of higher manganese silicide, which are formed by reactive diffusion method with the thickness up to micron, grow only in the interior of silicon substrate. This fact also can testify to the vapor-liquid-solid growth mechanism.