Henrik Hartmann Henrichsen

Undoped and in-situ B doped GeSn epitaxial growth on Ge by atmospheric pressure-chemical vapor deposition

In this letter, we propose an atmospheric pressure-chemical vapor deposition technique to grow metastable GeSn epitaxial layers on Ge. We report the growth of defect free fully strained undoped and in-situ B doped GeSn layers on Ge substrates with Sn contents up to 8%. Those metastable layers stay fully strained after 30 min anneal in N2 at 500 °C; Ge-Sn interdiffusion is seen at 500 °C but not at lower temperature. B is 100% active in the in-situ GeSn:B layers up to a concentration of 1.7 × 1019 cm−3. GeSn:B provides slightly lower Hall hole mobility values than in pure p-type Ge especially for low B concentrations.

Optimized Laser Thermal Annealing on Germanium for High Dopant Activation and Low Leakage Current

In this paper, state-of-the-art laser thermal annealing is used to fabricate Ge diodes. We compared the effect of laser thermal annealing (LTA) and rapid thermal annealing (RTA) on dopant activation and electrical properties of phosphorus and Arsenic-doped n+/p junctions. Using LTA, high carrier concentration above 1020 cm-3 was achieved in n-type doped regions, which enables low access resistance in Ge devices. Furthermore, the LTA process was optimized to achieve a diode ION/IOFF ratio ~105 and ideality factor (n) ~1.2, as it allows excellent junction depth control when combined with optimized implant conditions. On the other hand, RTA revealed very high ION/IOFF ratio ~107 and n ~1, at the cost of high dopant diffusion and lower carrier concentrations which would degrade scalability and access resistance.

Directed self-assembled crystalline oligomer domains on graphene and graphite

We observe the formation of thin films of fibre-like aggregates from the prototypical organic semiconductor molecule para-hexaphenylene (p-6P) on graphite thin flakes and on monolayer graphene. Using atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, polarized fluorescence microscopy, and bireflectance microscopy, the molecular orientations on the surface are deduced and correlated to both the morphology as well as to the high-symmetry directions of the graphitic surface: the molecules align with their long axis at ±11° with respect to a high-symmetry direction. The results show that the graphene surface can be used as a growth substrate to direct the self-assembly of organic molecular thin films and nanofibres, both with and without lithographical processing.

Nanofibers made to order: free floating, transferred and gel-packed organic nanoaggregates

Light-emitting nanofibers grown from organic molecules such as para-hexaphenyl or substituted para-quaterphenyl have extraordinary morphological, optical and electrical properties that make them interesting candidates as key elements in future electronics and photonics. These fibers are generated in a self assembly fashion on template substrates. In order to integrate them into more complex structures, a transfer from the growth substrate is necessary. In this paper we show results from optical and morphological measurements on nanofibers transferred onto semiconductors, kept freely floating in solution and frozen in gel. The former investigations allow us to study with nanometric resolution via an atomic force microscope the deformability of nanofibers. The latter studies, based on single photon as well as confocal two-photon microscopy, provide three-dimensional optical images and also the angular distribution of light emitted from individual aggregates. It is observed that waveguiding affects the spatial emission characteristics.

Characterization of positional errors and their influence on micro four-point probe measurements on a 100 nm Ru film

Thin-film sheet resistance measurements at high spatial resolution and on small pads are important and can be realized with micrometer-scale four-point probes. As a result of the small scale the measurements are affected by electrode position errors. We have characterized the electrode position errors in measurements on Ru thin film using an Au-coated 12-point probe. We show that the standard deviation of the static electrode position error is on the order of 5 nm, which significantly affects the results of single configuration measurements. Position-error-corrected dual-configuration measurements, however, are shown to eliminate the effect of position errors to a level limited either by electrical measurement noise or dynamic position errors. We show that the probe contact points remain almost static on the surface during the measurements (measured on an atomic scale) with a standard deviation of the dynamic position errors of 3 A. We demonstrate how to experimentally distinguish between different sources of measurement errors, e.g. electrical measurement noise, probe geometry error as well as static and dynamic electrode position errors.

Precision of single-engage micro Hall effect measurements

Recently a novel microscale Hall effect measurement technique has been developed to extract sheet resistance (Rs), Hall sheet carrier density (NHs) and Hall mobility (μH) from collinear micro 4-point probe measurements in the vicinity of an insulating boundary [1]. The technique measures in less than a minute directly the local transport properties, which enables in-line production monitoring on scribe line test pads [2]. To increase measurement speed and reliability, a method in which 4-point measurements are performed using two different electrode pitches has been developed [3]. In this study we calculate the measurement error on RS, NHS and μH resulting from electrode position errors, probe placement, sample size and Hall signal magnitude. We show the relationship between measurement precision and electrode pitch, which is important when down-scaling the micro 4-point probe to fit smaller test pads. The study is based on Monte Carlo simulations.

Fast static field CIPT mapping of unpatterned MRAM film stacks

While investigating uniformity of magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) stacks we find experimentally and analytically that variation in the resistance area product (RA) is more important to monitor as compared to the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR), which is less sensitive to MTJ variability. The standard Current In-Plane Tunneling (CIPT) method measures both RA and TMR, but the usefulness for uniformity mapping, e.g. for tool optimization, is limited by excessive measurement time. Thus, we develop and demonstrate a fast complementary static magnetic field method focused only on measurement of RA. We compare the static field method to the standard CIPT method and find perfect agreement between the extracted RA values and measurement repeatability while the static field method is several times faster. The static field CIPT method is demonstrated for 200 mm wafer mapping showing radial as well as asymmetrical variations related to the MTJ deposition conditions.

Submicron organic nanofiber devices with different anode-cathode materials: A simple approach

The authors present a simple general method for simultaneously producing tens of submicron electrode gaps with different cathode and anode materials on top of nanofibers, nanowires, and nanotubes, with an optional gap size variation. Using this method, an ensemble of para-hexaphenylene (p6P) nanofiber devices of different length was fabricated with Sm and Au electrodes. The measured I-V characteristics are in agreement with a nonlinear hopping transport model, where domain barriers dominate the transport with an estimated domain size of 23±5 nm.

Electrical characterization of single nanometer-wide Si fins in dense arrays

This paper demonstrates the development of a methodology using the micro four-point probe (μ4PP) technique to electrically characterize single nanometer-wide fins arranged in dense arrays. We show that through the concept of carefully controlling the electrical contact formation process, the electrical measurement can be confined to one individual fin although the used measurement electrodes physically contact more than one fin. We demonstrate that we can precisely measure the resistance of individual ca. 20 nm wide fins and that we can correlate the measured variations in fin resistance with variations in their nanometric width. Due to the demonstrated high precision of the technique, this opens the prospect for the use of μ4PP in electrical critical dimension metrology.

A variable probe pitch micro-Hall effect method

Hall effect metrology is important for a detailed characterization of the electronic properties of new materials for nanoscale electronics. The micro-Hall effect (MHE) method, based on micro four-point probes, enables a fast characterization of ultrathin films with minimal sample preparation. Here, we study in detail how the analysis of raw measurement data affects the accuracy of extracted key sample parameters, i.e., how the standard deviation on sheet resistance, carrier mobility and Hall sheet carrier density is affected by the data analysis used. We compare two methods, based primarily on either the sheet resistance signals or the Hall resistance signals, by theoretically analysing the effects of electrode position errors and electrical noise on the standard deviations. We verify the findings with a set of experimental data measured on an ultrashallow junction silicon sample. We find that in presence of significant electrical noise, lower standard deviation is always obtained when the geometrical analysis is based on the sheet resistance signals. The situation is more complicated when electrode position errors are dominant; in that case, the better method depends on the experimental conditions, i.e., the distance between the insulating boundary and the electrodes. Improvement to the accuracy of Hall Effect measurement results is crucial for nanoscale metrology, since surface scattering often leads to low carrier mobility.