Morphology and kinetics of crystallization of amorphous V₇₅Si₂₅ thin-alloy films

Electrical and microstructural changes of coevaporated V₇₅Si₂₅ alloy thin films have been studied as a function of temperature from room temperature to 830 °C. In situ resistivity measurements, hot-stage transmission electron microscopy, Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy and the Seeman-Bohlin glancing angle incidence x-ray diffraction technique were applied. Upon heat treatment at a heating rate of 8 °C/min, a sharp decrease in resistivity occurs at ∼670 °C which results from an amorphous to crystalline phase transformation. The crystallized phase was identified as V₃Si. The mechanism of transformation is random nucleation at a rapidly decreasing rate and a fast quasi-isotropic growth. The kinetics of crystallization have been studied by utilizing electrical resistivity measurements during isothermal heat treatment. Six different temperatures between 570 °C and 630 °C were adopted. The apparent activation energy (∼3.6 eV) obtained from isothermal measurements was found to be in agreement with that obtained from nonisothermal treatments at varying rates of heating. The distinct change of the Avrami mode parameter from 4 to 2 at a constant value of t/τ during the process of crystallization is not immediately understood.