Pr2O3/Si(0 0 1) interface reactions and stability

We show that an interfacial silicate is formed in a natural way between Si(0 0 1) and the deposited Pr2O3 film if a sufficient amount of oxygen is provided during deposition, as during electron beam evaporation from Pr6O11 source. We provide arguments from results of ab initio calculations and we present a ternary phase diagram of the Pr–O–Si system obtained for epitaxial films from non-destructive depth profiling data acquired by synchrotron radiation and photoelectron spectroscopy (SR-PES) at the undulator beam line U49/2-PGM2. The composition of the interfacial layer is (Pr2O3)(SiO)x(SiO2)y, with x+y between 2 and 6 and depends on the growth condition and distance from the substrate. No interfacial SiO2 and no interfacial silicide is formed during growth. The ternary phase diagram indicates that this non-stoichiometric pseudobinary alloy is stable on Si up to high temperatures, without phase separation into Pr2O3 and SiO2. Therefore, a complete re-engineering of the CMOS process may be not necessary.