Effects of silide formation on the surface stracture and magnetic properties of cobalt thin films on sigle silicon

As the development of ultra-large scale integrated devices, control of nanoscale structure, thermal and chemical stability and uniformity at the thin films plays a key role in applications of the fields as ohmic contact, Schottky barrier, interconnect and electrode [1]. Cobalt exhibits high spin polarization of carriers at the Fermi level, low electrical resistivity and small lattice mismatch with silicon [2, 3]. Much more attention has been attracted to the study of Co films on Si substrate. Therefore, understanding the structure-property relations and controlling the nanoscale structures at Co/ Si thin films are very important for their applications.