AES and XPS investigations of the surface layers of porous silicon with Fe, Co, and Ni embedded pores

A Composite material of porous silicon with pore embedded d-metals por-Si(Me) can be used for fabricating memory cells. Por-Si layers have been produced by electrochemical etching of n-type silicon (100) according to the conventional process. Fe, Co, and Ni galvanic deposition in por-Si has been performed using aqueous solutions of corresponding sulfate salts. The Auger profiles of the obtained por-Si(Fe), por-Si(Co), por-Si(Ni) nanocomposites have shown that its surface layers (up to 40 nm thick) contained about 10% Fe and no more than 1% Co and Ni. These facts confirm data that Co and Ni, unlike Fe, penetrate deep into the silicon pores. The value of the magnetic moment for the nanocrystalline Ni atom incorporated into the por-Si(Ni) has been estimated based on the dependence of the relative intensity of the maxima for the 3s multiplet splitting of the X-ray phase spectra on the number of uncoupled d-electrons in systems with 3d metals. The obtained value ∼2.4 μB exceeds the atomic magnetic moment in bulk metallic Ni.