Abstract
The crystal quality of β-FeSi2 formed on Si(001) by both the thermal reaction method and reactive deposition epitaxy (RDE) was investigated under various growth conditions. Compared with the thermal reaction method, the crystal quality of β-FeSi2 formed by RDE was improved. In the RDE method, the Fe deposition rate as well as the growth temperature influenced the crystal quality of β-FeSi2. Among various growth temperatures and deposition rates of Fe, highly (100)-oriented epitaxial β-FeSi2 was formed by RDE at 470°C and 0.1 Å/s, respectively. Measurements of the absorption coefficient at room temperature (RT) indicate that β-FeSi2 has a direct band gap of about 0.83 eV.