| In recent years metal silicides have attracted attention with their potential for application in microelectronics. Low resistivities and high stabilities couple well with the potential for epitaxial growth to make silicides an excellent choice for silicon based devices. Applications for the material include electronic gates, interconnects, and ohmic and Schottky barrier contacts to silicon. Select silicides possess phases displaying semiconducting properties, allowing for the simple integration of semiconducting heterostructures with standard silicon circuits. The band gaps of many of these materials allow them to be used in optical devices operating in the near infrared range.; The research outlined in this thesis involves the formation of continuous layers of one such material: iron disilicide. With a band gap of 0.9 {dollar}pm{dollar}.1 eV, iron disilicide is a semiconducting material possessing optical possibilities. Difficulty has persisted in the formation of continuous layers of this material; a difficulty which limits the usefulness of the silicide for electronic purposes. Experimentally, this work examines the problems of silicide formation, and succeeds in forming continuous layers of iron disilicide with a methodology well within reach of circuit processing techniques. The work also verifies the band gap quoted in the literature.; Included in this thesis is a review of general silicide properties, and how these properties relate to the microelectronic industry. Semiconducting and conducting iron disilicide are reviewed in detail. |
