Deposition of thin metal and metal silicide films from the decomposition of organometallic compounds

The deposition of metal silicide thin films can be undertaken using volatile organometallic complexes. Organometallic vapor phase epitaxy or metal-organic chemical vapor phase epitaxy has a number of potential advantages over conventional chemical vapor deposition and molecular beam epitaxy technologies, and a number of novel thin film materials may be made from organometallic compounds. Plasma-, pyrolytic- and photolytic- assisted decomposition of organometallic complexes have been undertaken in an effort to make a variety of metallic and metal silicide thin films. These efforts are comprehensively reviewed.