Electroless deposition and silicidation of Ni contacts into p-type Porous Silicon

Abstract

Porous Silicon (PS) has attracted much attention since the discovery of its photo luminescent behavior. It has also been used for various other applications such as electroluminescent light emitting-diodes (LEDs), photodetectors and solar cells. For such devices, it is important to make good metallic Ohmic contacts to the PS in order to maximize the efficiency. In order to produce buried contacts, barrier layers, Schottky devices, etc. in PS, it is advantageous to deposit metal that covers not only the surface of the porous layer, but also the inside walls and the bottom of the pores. In this work experiments were performed to examine the morphology and properties of electroless deposition of Nickel into p-type PS and subsequent formation of Nickel silicide after heat treatment. Circular PS samples of 6 mm diameter were produced by anodizing p-type Silicon wafers for 15 min and were subsequently plated with Ni using three different plating baths. The pores are on average 20 µm deep and 4 µm wide. Two samples of each type were heat treated in an nitrogen atmosphere for one hour at 400 and 600°C respectively to produce Nickel silicide. Reference samples were made by means of electron beam evaporation of Ni. SEM micrographs show that the best pore coverage was achieved using the Ni plating bath containing hypophosphite. I–V characterization shows that different rectifying and Ohmic contacts can be formed between electroless deposited Ni and PS depending on the conditions of the heat treatment. XRD and EDX characterizations show that both the NiSi and Ni₂Si phases exist in the sample at the same time.