AFM Studies of Platinum Silicide Thin Films on Silicon Grown by Pulsed Laser Deposition

PtSi ultra-thin films were grown on Si-wafer using pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The surface structure of these films was studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM). In addition, the compositional structure of the PtSi as determined from X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is discussed. First report of a possible growth mechanism is presented, on studying the variation of morphological features (i.e., roughness and size of crystallites) with annealing temperatures and the film thicknesses.