Jm. Liang et al., CRYSTALLIZATION OF AMORPHOUS COSI2 THIN-FILMS .1. KINETICS OF NUCLEATION AND GROWTH, Materials chemistry and physics, 38(3), 1994, pp. 250-257
The kinetics of nucleation and growth of spherulites in amorphous CoSi
2 thin films of 100 nm of thickness have been studied in situ by trans
mission electron microscopy. The time dependence of the number of nucl
ei showed pronounced transient character. The growth rate was found to
be constant upon isothermal annealing in the temperature range of 130
to 170-degrees-C in a broad interval of time. The activation energy o
f incorporation of growth units into the crystal lattice was found to
be 23.9 kcal/mole. For the surface free energy between the crystallite
s and the amorphous phase the value 212 erg/cm2 has been determined fr
om the nucleation experiments. The nucleation was found to occur rando
mly in the bulk of the amorphous film with a constant rate during the
transformation process as deduced from the average value n = 3.8 in th
e Avrami kinetic law for overall crystallization xi = 1-exp(-kt(n)).