Al contacts to poly-Si were formed by thermal deposition from tungsten crucible in vacuum (P r<10−6 Torr, T s≈300 K) and annealing at 450℃ in nitrogen for 15 min. Aluminum contacts to the top layers of the structures were deposited in the same way but without annealing. Golden wires were welded to the contact pads. Structural perfection and chemical composition of RAD001 the layers were explored by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Test elements for electrical measurements were formed

by contact lithography and had the sizes of about 1 mm. I-V characteristics of the Schottky diodes were measured in darkness at different temperatures varied in the range from 20℃ to 70℃ and at the temperature of 80 K. Photovoltage (U emf) spectra were obtained as described in [15]; for each photon energy (h ν), the photoresponse value U emf was normalized to the number of incident photons. Uncoated satellites were used for the measurement of sheet resistance (ρ s) of the poly-Si films. The WSxM software [16] was used

for TEM image processing. Results and discussion A typical TEM micrograph of the resultant structure (Figure 1) represents images of polycrystalline Ni silicide and polysilicon layers between Si3N4 and Al films. The Ni silicide film is seen to be composed of a number of phases: at least two phases with the grains close in sizes and comparable volume fractions are distinctly observed by TEM. Bright inclusions are also observed at the Ni silicide/poly-Si interface; this website we presumably interpret them as residual silicon oxide particles. Figure 1 TEM images demonstrate the a Schottky diode film composed of three layers on Si 3 N 4 . (1) is the Si3N4 substrate film; the diode film consists of (2) poly-Si, (3) nickel silicide, and (4) Al contact layers. (a, b) Images of different samples with similar structures obtained by the use of different microscopes. It is

also seen in Figure 1 that after the formation of the Ni silicide/poly-Si film, the average thicknesses of the Ni silicide and poly-Si layers became 60 and 135 nm, respectively. Using the mass conservation law, this allows us to estimate the density of the silicide film as approximately 7 g/cm3 (we adopt the density of poly-Si to be 2.33 g/cm3 and the density of the initial poly-Ni film to be 8.9 g/cm3). This in turn allows us to roughly evaluate the composition of the silicide layer (the required densities of Ni silicides can be found, e. g., in [17, 18]). If we postulate that the silicide film consists of only two phases, as it is stated in [17], then they might be Ni2Si and NiSi (the process temperature did not exceed 450℃ and mainly was 400℃ or lower; it is known however that NiSi2 – or, according to [19], slightly more nickel-rich compound Ni 1.04Si 1.