Epitaxial erbium silicide on Ge+ implanted silicon

Erbium silicide layers were grown epitaxially on Ge+ ion implanted Si. Epitaxy of ErSi2-x layers was achieved at temperature of 750 C.The layers are grown in the tetragonal phase.The growth of the silicide layers resulted in a drastic decrease of the dislocations in the SiGe layer accompanied by the accumulation of defects at the SiGe/ErSi2-x interface.A small redistribution of the Ge in the SiGe layer was also observed.