Here, we introduce and give an overview of a general lithography-free method to fabricate silicide and germanide micro-/nanostructures on Si and Ge surfaces through metal-vapor-initiated endoepitaxial growth. Excellent controls on shape and orientation are achieved by adjusting the substrate orientation and growth parameters. Furthermore, micro-/nanoscale pits with controlled morphologies can a...

Metal-silicon junctions are crucial to the operation of semiconductor devices: aggressive scaling demands low-resistive metallic terminals to replace high-doped silicon in transistors. It suggests an efficient charge injection through a low Schottky barrier between a metal and Si. Tremendous efforts invested into engineering metal-silicon junctions reveal the major role of chemical bonding at t...

Soft x-ray uorescence spectroscopy has been employed to obtain information about the Si-derived valence band states of Fe/Si multilayers. The valence band spectra are quite diierent for lms with and without antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling, demonstrating that these multilayers have different silicide phases in their spacer layers. Comparison with previously published uorescence da...

Based on a review of the current literature, a surface phase diagram is proposed for the submonolayer Au on Sit 111 ) system. Kinetic considerations are reviewed and key surface phase diagram features such as the O < 0.4 ML metastable Sit 11 l )-1~/3 x ~/3 tR30 Au structure and the high temperature Si(11 l )-(V3 x ~/3tR3q'-Au to Sil 1 l 1 )-( 1 x 1 tAu second order phase transition are discusse...