Arik Jung

Highly Mismatched, Dislocation-Free SiGe/Si Heterostructures

Defect-free mismatched heterostructures on Si substrates are produced by an innovative strategy. The strain relaxation is engineered to occur elastically rather than plastically by combining suitable substrate patterning and vertical crystal growth with compositional grading. Its validity is proven both experimentally and theoretically for the pivotal case of SiGe/Si(001).

Heterointegration of InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells on micro-patterned Si substrates

InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells (QWs) grown on μ-patterned Ge/Si substrates by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy are investigated by electron microscopy and spatially resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The lattice parameter mismatch of GaAs and Si is overcome by a Ge buffer layer grown by low-energy plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The GaAs crystals form truncated pyramids whose shape is strongly affected by the geometry of the underlying pattern consisting of 8 μm deep and 3–50 μm wide square Si pillars. Comparing the measured PL energies with calculations performed in the effective mass approximation reveals that the QW emission energies are significantly influenced by the GaAs morphology. It is shown that the geometry favors indium diffusion during growth from the inclined facets towards the top (001) facet. The Si pillar-size dependent release of thermally induced strain observed in the PL measurements is confirmed by X-ray diffraction.

Lattice tilt and strain mapped by X-ray scanning nanodiffraction in compositionally graded SiGe/Si microcrystals

The scanning X-ray nanodiffraction technique is used to reconstruct the three-dimensional distribution of lattice strain and Ge concentration in compositionally graded Si1−xGex microcrystals grown epitaxially on Si pillars. The reconstructed crystal shape qualitatively agrees with scanning electron micrographs and the calculated three-dimensional distribution of lattice tilt quantitatively matches finite-element method simulations. The grading of the Ge content obtained from reciprocal-space maps corresponds to the nominal grading of the epitaxial growth recipe. The X-ray measurements confirm strain calculations, according to which the lattice curvature of the microcrystals is dominated by the misfit strain, while the thermal strain contributes negligibly. The nanodiffraction experiments also indicate that the strain in narrow microcrystals on 2 × 2 µm Si pillars is relaxed purely elastically, while in wider microcrystals on 5 × 5 µm Si pillars, plastic relaxation by means of dislocations sets in. This confirms previous work on these structures using transmission electron microscopy and defect etching.

Enhancing elastic stress relaxation in SiGe/Si heterostructures by Si pillar necking

We demonstrate that the elastic stress relaxation mechanism in micrometre-sized, highly mismatched heterostructures may be enhanced by employing patterned substrates in the form of necked pillars, resulting in a significant reduction of the dislocation density. Compositionally graded Si1−xGex crystals were grown by low energy plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition, resulting in tens of micrometres tall, three-dimensional heterostructures. The patterned Si(001) substrates consist of micrometre-sized Si pillars either with the vertical {110} or isotropically under-etched sidewalls resulting in narrow necks. The structural properties of these heterostructures were investigated by defect etching and transmission electron microscopy. We show that the dislocation density, and hence the competition between elastic and plastic stress relaxation, is highly influenced by the shape of the substrate necks and their proximity to the mismatched epitaxial material. The SiGe dislocation density increases monotonicall...

Electrical properties of Si-Si interfaces obtained by room temperature covalent wafer bonding

We study covalent bonds between p-doped Si wafers (resistivity ∼10 Ω cm) fabricated on a recently developed 200 mm high-vacuum system. Oxide- and void free interfaces were obtained by argon (Ar) or neon (Ne) sputtering prior to wafer bonding at room temperature. The influence of the sputter induced amorphous Si layer at the bonding interface on the electrical behavior is accessed with temperature-dependent current-voltage measurements. In as-bonded structures, charge transport is impeded by a potential barrier of 0.7 V at the interface with thermionic emission being the dominant charge transport mechanism. Current-voltage characteristics are found to be asymmetric which can tentatively be attributed to electric dipole formation at the interface as a result of the time delay between the surface preparation of the two bonding partners. Electron beam induced current measurements confirm the corresponding asymmetric double Schottky barrier like band-alignment. Moreover, we demonstrate that defect annihilation...