Epitaxial Si/CoSi2/Si structures can be grown under ultra-high vacuum conditions. The metallic CoSi2 films can be extremely thin typically between 1 nm and 20 nm. The electrical properties of these heterostructures are presented, mainly the transport of electrons in the metallic films parallel to the interfaces and the transfer of electrons through the metal ilm. The influence of pinholes in the CoSi2 layers will be discussed.

We show that a depletion mode transistor is a very versatile tool for the electrical characterization of SOI structures. We apply it to Si thin films recrystallized by a zone—melting technique in which grainboundaries are localized. Apart from the transportparameters, one can get from drain—source current the information usually determined from a MOS capacitor. Owing to the existence in such a transistor of two MOS structures, we are able to characterize both Si-SiO2 interfaces as well as the “bulk” of the Si film.

The irreversible thermal annealing behaviour of paramagnetic oxygen vacancy defects (E' centers) induced by 40 keV Ne+ and 140 keV Kr+ ion implantation in amorphous SiO2 has been studied by means of electron paramagnetic resonance. The reversible E'l⇆ B2 defect transformation occurring via a hole injection/trapping process under ionising radiation (190 keV H+) is used as a means of distinguishing a reversible modification of the defect charge state from irreversible annealing of oxygen vacancies. Irreversible thermal recovery is shown to occur between 500 and 900°C. Both conventional and tungsten lamp heater annealing results are compared to predictions based on Simpson and Sosin's model for diffusional recombination of spatially correlated Frenkel pairs and to a simple model for unimolecular recombination. The annealing behaviour observed is accounted for assuming a gaussian distribution in activation energy for diffusion.