Influence of the chemical environment on the Si KL x-ray satellite spectra of transition metal silicides bombarded by 43 MeV Ne ions

We report on the study of heavy-ion-induced Si KL x-ray satellite spectra of several 3d, 4d and 5d silicides, with the aim of elucidating the trends in bonding properties of transition metal (TM) silicides. Measurements of the 43 MeV Ne3+-beam-induced Si KL spectra of elemental silicon and compound targets were performed at the Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland, with a high-resolution von Hamos crystal spectrometer. The interpretation of the data was based on the importance of the effect of the solid and chemical environment on the KL x-ray satellite relative intensities due to the L-vacancy refilling by intra- and inter-atomic electron transitions. Within the framework of a statistical procedure for L-shell vacancy refilling the average L-shell rearrangement probability for each silicide was extracted so that calculated x-ray intensity distributions matched the experimental ones. The results are discussed in terms of the interplay of Si-Si, Si-TM and TM-TM bonding interactions in the studied TM silicides.