Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
Recently, a generalized kinetic model for silicide formation has been developed and a principle of the largest free energy degradation rate (largest FEDR) has been proposed. Free energy change rate as a function of diffusion flux has been derived from the kinetic model so that the principle can be justified not only for first phase formation but also for the subsequent processes. Silicide formation sequence predictions, from the model and the FEDR principle, for 15 metal-Si systems have shown very good agreement with the experimental results reported in the literature. In this paper, a brief introduction to the model and the principle is given, followed by examples of the predictions for several metal-Si systems and comparison with experimental results.