SPUTTERING PHENOMENA OF COSI2 UNDER LOW-ENERGY OXYGEN BOMBARDMENT

Sputter depth profiling with AES, XPS and SIMS suffers from sputter in duced artifacts such as preferential sputtering, segregation phenomena and recoil displacements. A combined in situ sputter RBS system has b een used to study the sputter process into detail. In this work the be am induced oxidation of CoSi2 during low energy oxygen irradiation is investigated. The oxygen bombardment of CoSi2 offers a very complex be havior as a function of dose where we first observe a gradual Co deple tion subsequently followed by a replenishment of this depleted region. Additional XPS and TEM analysis of the bombarded CoSi2 shows that the transient behavior can be correlated with changes in oxidation and di fferent phase formations.