Development of epitaxial growth technology for Ge1−xSnx alloy and study of its properties for Ge nanoelectronics

We have recently developed an epitaxial growth technique for Ge1−xSnx layers with an especially high Sn content, and we investigated the crystalline properties of the Ge1−xSnx epitaxial layers. In this report, we describe our recent achievements for improving the crystalline quality of the epitaxial growth of Ge1−xSnx layers on various substrates. We also demonstrate the impacts of Sn incorporation on the defect and dopant behaviors and electrical properties of Ge1−xSnx epitaxial layers. Sn incorporation improves on the issue of unintentional hole generation due to vacancy defects and enhances the dopant activation of Ga atoms in the Ge matrix. In addition, we introduce a recent study of the optical properties of Ge1−xSnx epitaxial layers with very high Sn contents.

► We investigated the crystalline properties of high Sn content Ge1−xSnx epitaxial layers.
► We achieved the improvement on crystalline quality of Ge1−xSnx epitaxial layers on various substrates.
► The impacts of Sn incorporation on the defect and dopant behaviors in Ge1−xSnx are demonstrated.
► The optical properties of Ge1−xSnx epitaxial layers with very high Sn contents are reported.