Swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation is a well established tool for the controlled modification of the properties of surface and interfaces of thin films and multilayer structures at a nanometer scale. Metal silicides formed by ion beam mixing (IBM) at metal/Si interfaces are potentially attractive materials in microelectronic devices for fabricating contacts, gate electrodes and interconnects due to their low electrical resistivity, chemical stability and low fabrication temperature.

In the present work Si/Mn/Si thin films were deposited on n-Si (100) using e-gun evaporation method at 10^-8 torr vacuum. The top layer of Si was deposited to prevent the oxidation of Mn. The system was irradiated by 120 MeV Au⁹⁺ ions with varying fluences (from 1e13 to 1e14 ions/cm²) at Inter University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi, India.

Surface, interface mixing and phase formation were investigated using XRR, GIXRD, RBS and AFM techniques before and after irradiation. Ion beam induced morphological modifications were investigated by AFM analysis. GIXRD measurements revealed formation of silicide phase (Mn₅Si₂) at Mn/Si interface due to the electronic energy loss which was confirmed by RBS and XRR results.