Using high dose implantation of Fe+into (111)Si, followed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at 1150 °C for 10 s, we fabricated continuous buried layers of the metallic &agr;‐FeSi2phase. Rutherford backscattering experiments indicate that these layers contain a large number of Fe vacancies, up to 18%. By implanting through a SiO2mask, we produced Schottky diodes with idealty factors of 1.4±0.1 and a Schottky barrier height of &Fgr;B=0.84±0.03 eV on (111)n‐Si. In this letter we report for the first time the formation of the semiconducting stoichiometric FeSi2(&bgr;‐FeSi2) phase by annealing the buried &agr;‐FeSi2layers below the phase transition temperature of 937 °C; specifically at 750 °C for 20 h.