Investigation of Ni/epi-SiGe layer stacks annealed by microwave heating

The Ni/epi-SiGe/Si layer stacks were annealed by microwave annealing and rapid thermal annealing via halogen lamp heating. Sheet resistance, X-ray diffraction and micro-Raman spectroscopy results indicate that the reaction and diffusion rates of the related Ni, Si and Ge atoms were accelerated for the samples annealed by microwave annealing, compared with the samples annealed by rapid thermal annealing under the same substrate temperature and duration. Since the diffusion and reaction are in principle thermally driven processes, the volumetric and selective heating properties of microwave annealing, which can result in higher local temperature, are thought to be responsible for the accelerated reaction and diffusion rates.