ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews advances made in the field of silicide epitaxy. It focuses on the growth of epitaxial silicide thin films by various techniques. Advances in the technology of silicide fabrication have allowed the formation of nearly perfect interfaces between certain epitaxial silicide films and the silicon crystal. The crystal lattice and the lattice constant of various silicides have been considered from the standpoint of epitaxial formation by a number of authors. Most of the usual considerations for heteroepitaxial growth apply to the silicide-silicon systems as well. In summary, non- ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) reaction technique is a convenient method for epitaxial silicide growth on Si. The only known method of fabricating truly single-crystal epitaxial silicide without resorting to UHV processing is through fast regrowth from the liquid phase. The exact processing conditions one must employ to achieve single-crystal growth, however, are more complicated than simply laser melting of as-deposited metal layers on Si.
