A new record‐high room‐temperature electron Hall mobility (
Improved thin film quality and photoluminescence of N-doped epitaxial germanium-on-silicon using MOCVD
This paper addresses one of the key issues in the scientific community of Si photonics: thin-film quality and the light emission properties of band-engineered n+Germanium-on-Silicon (Ge-on-Si). Compared to the traditional delta doping approach, which was utilized in the first electrically-pumped Ge-on-Si lasers, we offer an n+Ge-on-Si thin film with better material quality and higher carrier injection efficiency grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The impacts of thermal cycle annealing and Si substrate offcut on the thin film quality were investigated, including surface roughness, strain, threading dislocation density, Si-Ge interdiffusion, and dopant diffusion. It was revealed that: 1) MOCVD overcomes the outdiffision issue of n-type dopants by having the dopant peaks at the bottom of the Ge films; 2) the characterization of the light emission properties of these MOCVD n+Ge-on-Si samples (1.0 × 1019cm−3doped) compared to delta-doped ultra-high vacuum chemical vapor deposition (UHVCVD) Ge, showing comparable photoluminescence (PL) spectral intensity at 1/4 of the doping level; 3) Detailed PL spectral analyses showed that population inversion from the direct gap transition has been achieved, and the injected electron density in the direct Γ valley is comparable to that of the delta-doped sample even though the n-type doping level is 75% less; and 4) Experimental evidences that Si-Ge interdiffusion has a much larger impact on PL intensity than threading dislocation density in the range of 108-109/cm3. These results indicate that MOCVD n+Ge is very promising to reduce the threshold of Ge gain media on Si notably.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10126035
- Publisher / Repository:
- Optical Society of America
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Optical Materials Express
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2159-3930
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- Article No. 1
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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