| This dissertation involves the growth and microstructure characterization of self-assembled epitaxial silicide nanowires (NWs). It has been discovered that many metal/Si systems (Ti-Si(111), Dy/Si(110), Dy/Si(111), Co/Si(001), Co/Si(110), Co/Si(111), Ni/Si(111), Ni/Si(110), etc.) show self-assembled epitaxial silicide nanowire formation behavior during the ultra-high vacuum (UHV) reactive epitaxy process, in addition to the previously known rare-earth/Si(001) system. Most nanowires have dimensions of approximately 20 nm wide, 5 nm high and 1 um long. The dimensions and densities of the nanowires change considerably with growth temperature, deposition rate, and coverage. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) reveals that most of these silicide nanowires are defect-free single crystals and form atomically flat interfaces with the Si substrate. Most silicide nanowires (COSi2/Si, NiSi2/Si(110), TiSi 2/Si(111) DYSi2/Si(110), etc.) grow into the Si substrate along inclined Si{lcub}111{rcub}, forming a V-shaped groove in the Si substrate. In several silicide nanowire systems (DySi2/Si(111), DySi2/S1(001), NiSi2/Si(111), etc.), however, the nanowires grow on top of the substrate. For these systems, the nanowires can be aligned to a single orientation using a stepped substrate. The growth mode (in-growth versus growth on top of the substrate surface) plays a significant role in the formation of nanowires and islands. Growth on the substrate usually produces islands that share the symmetry of the substrate in shape or in structure, whereas in-growth islands show less dependency on the surface symmetry (i.e. they adopt an asymmetric island shape and are less sensitive to surface steps). It has been proven that the silicides do not need to satisfy the requirement as specified in the "classic model" to form nanowires. A new nanowire formation mechanism is proposed in this work. This mechanism requires coherent growth of overlayer islands into the substrate along inclined close-packed substrate planes. The in-growth of the island breaks the symmetry of the Si substrate and leads to formation of nanowire islands. It is also found that most of the nanowires studied in this work are of kinetic growth shape instead of equilibrium shape, as in the Co/Si(011) system. |
