Vacuum evaporation techniques were applied to the epitaxial growth of CrSi2on Si(111) substrates. There are two CrSi2matching faces which offer good lattice matchings, and which are observed experimentally: the (001) and the (111). These are present together in films grown by reactive deposition at temperatures from 450 to 1000 °C, with the latter matching face becoming more dominant as the growth temperature is raised. During an anneal at 1100 °C, however, the regions of the (111) matching face disappear in films ≥∼84 A˚ thick. Moderately good epitaxial alignment is obtained with the other matching face operative. Films ≤∼30 A˚ thick yield an opposite result: they adopt exclusively the (111) matching face as a result of this anneal. For both heteroepitaxial relationships, a strong islanding tendency is manifested during growth (unless the CrSi2layer is more than a few thousands of angstro¨ms thick), which is accentuated by such a post‐growth anneal. The population of CrSi2islands exhibits a gradual strain relaxation with increasing average island size. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.