Nucleation and growth of NiSi from $Ni2Si$ transrotational domains

The phase transition from $Ni2Si$ to NiSi transrotational structures was studied in terms of incubation $(t0)$ and characteristic $(τ)$ times, i.e. the time required to trigger the transformation and the time after which the volume fraction occupied by the NiSi phase $(χ)$ increases by 60%. The authors combined the effective medium approximation and the Avrami-Johnson-Mehl models to relate the measured sheet resistance $Rs$ versus time to $χ(t)$ in the temperature range between 230 and $320°C$ With this method, the nucleation barrier and the activation energies for NiSi growth were obtained, 0.5 and $0.93eV$⁠, respectively, with the density of nucleation sites higher in thicker layers.