Auger electron spectroscopy of compounds in the Si-Ti-C system: Characterization of Si-Ti-C multiphased materials obtained by CVD

Auger peak positions and line shapes analyses of the Si LVV, Si KLL, C KVV and Ti LMM transitions for reference compounds: Ti, Si, SiC, TiC, TiC 0.72, TiSi 2, Ti 5Si 3(C) and Ti 3SiC 2, belonging to the ternary Si-Ti-C system have been performed. The results show that there are sufficient differences in Auger peak positions and line shapes to allow compounds identifications. The Auger line shapes of the CKVV transitions for Ti 3SiC 2 and Ti 0.57Si 0.33C 0.1 (carbon solid solution in Ti 5Si 3) were found to be characteristic of carbon bonded to titanium. The Ti L 3M 23M 45 transition was found to be very sensitive to changes in the nature of the compounds. The spectra recorded for the reference compounds were used to characterize Si-Ti-C multiphased materials obtained by CVD. SiC-X (X = TiSi 2,Ti 3SiC 2, TiC + C) mixtures were identified.