Auger electron spectroscopy study on interfacial reactions in multilayer thin film systems

Interfacial reactions at room temperature in multilayer thin film systems have been investigated by the Auger Electron Spectroscopy method. The multilayer thin film structure consists of metal, native oxide, and/or deposited interfacial layers on metal and semiconductor substrates. Various combinations of metals and interfacial layers on different substrates have been investigated. For the multilayer systems Au, Ag, Cu, and Cr were used as metals, GeO2, Bi2O3, SnO2, Sb2O3, Ga2O3, and As2O3 were used as interfacial layers, and GaAs, Si, and Fe were used as substrates. Only ’metal’ atoms from the interfacial oxide layers (Ge from GeO2, Sb from Sb2O3, Bi from Bi2O3, Sn from SnO2, and Ga and As from the native oxide mixture of Ga2O3 and As2O3) were detected on the metal surface of Metal-Interfacial layer-Semiconductor and Metal-Interfacial layer-Metal-Semiconductor structures. This indicates that the interfacial reaction takes place only at the metal-interfacial layer interface. ’Drive-out’ diffusion is present at all interfacial reactions. The interfacial reactions and the drive-out diffusion processes are thought to play an important role in the degradation of thin film multilayer structures.