Electrical and structural properties of NixGey thin films made by Magnetron sputtering and flash lamp annealing

Due to its higher charge carrier mobility compared to silicon, germanium belongs to the promising materials to surpass the physical limitations of the silicon based CMOS technology. For the integration of germanium into the CMOS process, the ohmic contact material with sufficiently low resistivity plays a crucial role. One of the promising candidates is nickel-germanide (NiGe) with a specific resistivity of (13.5 – 22) cm. Those values are comparable with the nickel-silicides used in the CMOS process with electrical resistivities of around 17 cm
This work is focused on the formation process of NiGe films on different germanium layer morphologies, by the flash lamp annealing approach. Furthermore, the investigation on the NixGey phase formation at different annealing temperatures was performed by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction and cross section transmission electron microscopy. The electrical properties were investigated by the application of four-point-probe, Hall effect and circular transfer length measurement techniques.