Issues of Ge hut cluster array formation and growth at low temperatures on the Ge/Si(001) wetting layer are discussed on the basis of explorations performed by high resolution STM and in-situ RHEED. Dynamics of the RHEED patterns in the process of Ge hut array formation is investigated at low and high temperatures of Ge deposition. Different dynamics of RHEED patterns during the deposition of Ge atoms in different growth modes is observed, which reflects the difference in adatom mobility and their ‘condensation’ fluxes from Ge 2D gas on the surface for different modes, which in turn control the nucleation rates and densities of Ge clusters. Data of HRTEM studies of multilayer Ge/Si heterostructures are presented with the focus on low-temperature formation of perfect films.Heteroepitaxial Si p–i–n-diodes with multilayer stacks of Ge/Si(001) quantum dot dense arrays built in intrinsic domains have been investigated and found to exhibit the photo-emf in a wide spectral range from 0.8 to 5 μm. An effect of wide-band irradiation by infrared light on the photo-emf spectra has been observed. Photo-emf in different spectral ranges has been found to be differently affected by the wide-band irradiation. A significant increase in photo-emf is observed in the fundamental absorption range under the wide-band irradiation. The observed phenomena are explained in terms of positive and neutral charge states of the quantum dot layers and the Coulomb potential of the quantum dot ensemble. A new design of quantum dot infrared photodetectors is proposed.By using a coherent source spectrometer, first measurements of terahertz dynamical conductivity (absorptivity) spectra of Ge/Si(001) heterostructures were performed at frequencies ranged from 0.3 to 1.2 THz in the temperature interval from 300 to 5 K. The effective dynamical conductivity of the heterostructures with Ge quantum dots has been discovered to be significantly higher than that of the structure with the same amount of bulk germanium (not organized in an array of quantum dots). The excess conductivity is not observed in the structures with the Ge coverage less than 8 Å. When a Ge/Si(001) sample is cooled down the conductivity of the heterostructure decreases.

Platinum silicide Schottky diodes formed on films of polycrystalline Si doped by phosphorus are demonstrated to be efficient and manufacturable CMOS-compatible temperature sensors for microbolometer detectors of radiation. Thin-film platinum silicide/poly-Si diodes have been produced by a CMOS-compatible process on artificial Si 3 N 4 /SiO 2 /Si(001) substrates simulating the bolometer cells. Layer structure and phase composition of the original Pt/poly-Si films and the Pt silicide/poly-Si films synthesized by a low-temperature process have been studied by means of the scanning transmission electron microscopy; they have also been explored by means of the two-wavelength X-ray structural phase analysis and the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Temperature coefficient of voltage for the forward current of a single diode is shown to reach the value of about −2 %/°C in the temperature interval from 25 to 50 °C.

The phonon modes of self-assembled Ge/Si quantum dots grown by molecular-beam epitaxy in an apparatus integrated with a chamber of the scanning tunneling microscope into a single high-vacuum system are investigated using Raman spectroscopy. It is revealed that the Ge-Ge and Si-Ge vibrational modes are considerably enhanced upon excitation of excitons between the valence band Λ 3 and the conduction band Λ 1 (the E 1 and E 1 + ∆ 1 transitions). This makes it possible to observe the Raman spectrum of very small amounts of germanium, such as one layer of quantum dots with a germanium layer thickness of ≈ 10 Å. The enhancement of these modes suggests a strong electron-phonon interaction of the vibrational modes with the E 1 and E 1 + ∆ 1 excitons in the quantum dot. It is demonstrated that the frequency of the Ge-Ge mode decreases by 10 cm -1 with a decrease in the thickness of the Ge layer from 10 to 6 Å due to the spatial-confinement effect. The optimum thickness of the Ge layer for which the size dispersion of quantum dots is minimum is determined.

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