Initial stage of room-temperature metal-silicide formation studied by high-energyHe+-ion scattering

Abstract
Room-temperature reactivities of Au, Ag, and Pd deposited on clean Si(111) substrate surfaces have been studied by MeV He+-ion scattering. It is directly shown that there exists an average threshold film thickness of about three monolayers for gold or silver silicide formation. However, palladium interacts with silicon even at submonolayer coverage to form an amorphous PdSi-like film.