Kinetics of surface droplet epitaxy and its application to fabrication of mushroom-shaped metal/Si heterostructure on nanometer scale

The variation in interfacial reaction between Au islands and Si substrates and the fabrication of a Au/Si heterojunction on a nanometer scale are described. Morphologies and elemental distribution were drastically changed around the interface between Au islands and the Si substrate on changing the surface conditions of the substrate. In particular, the Au/Si bilayer structure was formed on the clean Si surface by thermal annealing instead of the well-known interdiffusion of the two elements. This structure was fabricated through liquid phase epitaxy (LPE), in which migrating Si atoms on the surface play an important role. These results suggest that the kinetics of the interfacial reaction are variable and controllable even within the same material system. On the basis of this phenomenon, mushroom-shaped bilayer dots of Au/Si and Ag/Si were fabricated on a nanometer scale by employing metal particles as the transport medium for Si growth.