Characterization of Rapid Melt Growth (RMG) Process for High Quality Thin Film Germanium on Insulator

Zainal, Nurfarina; Mitchell, S.J.N.; McNeill, David; Bain, Micheal F.; Armstrong, B.M.; Baine, Paul; Adley, David; Perova, T. S.

doi:10.1149/1.3700467

Cited by 4 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…It would be expected that much lower sheet resistance would be obtained after high annealing temperature compared to as-deposited samples. This assumption is based on the results attained from Raman measurements reported previously [3,12], where better crystallinity of germanium was produced at higher annealing temperatures. Figure 4 (a) illustrates Greek cross structure with four terminals, where a fixed current was forced between pads 1 and 2, and resulting potential different was measured between pads 3 and 4.…”

Section: / Sq Ln 2 Shmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example instead of using a bulk germanium wafer this can be reduced to a thinner layer, however additional processing will be involved. In recent investigations [3,4] modification of the generic Rapid Melt Growth (RMG) structure has demonstrated that thick and thin films of good quality crystalline germanium can be produced at high annealing temperature. In the case of energy conversion devices, a thicker germanium film is necessary for efficient energy absorption in the material [5,6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electrical characterisation of PVD germanium resistors with rapid melt growth (RMG) process

Zainal

Mitchell²,

McNeill³

2018

AIP Conference Proceedings

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This paper presents the electrical characterisation of germanium stripe resistors produced by Physical Vapour Deposition using a Rapid Melt Growth process with either single or multiple micro-crucible materials. Electrical measurement of single germanium stripe resistors were obtained using a Greek cross test structure whereas four-terminal aluminium rail test structures were used for germanium stripe arrays. The electrical characterisation was conducted under dark conditions. Results showed only a slight reduction in germanium sheet resistance compared to that of as-deposited material even after a high temperature (980 o C) crystal growth process. It is believed that the measurements were compromised by contact and leakage current issues. As a result, the electrical characteristics of crystallised germanium could not be investigated properly and the relationship to Raman measurement was not established.

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Section: / Sq Ln 2 Shmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrical characterisation of PVD germanium resistors with rapid melt growth (RMG) process

Zainal

Mitchell²,

McNeill³

2018

AIP Conference Proceedings

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“…The crucible can become strained due to the Ge balling phenomenon and so the capping layer was reinforced using a polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) layer and hafnium dioxide (HfO2). This is essential to minimise Ge balling and delamination [17].…”

Section: Rapid Melt Growth (Rmg) Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the early work [17], attention has been directed to producing high quality thick germanium films (100 nm and above) with the RMG technique. Results have shown that thick crystalline Ge films can be fabricated with the alteration of generic RMG materials by either using poly-Si or HfO2 capping layer.…”

Section: Experimeant Detailsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By providing Ge on insulator (GeOI) structures a good quality thin film Ge can be attained and thus, offer a low cost route. One of the GeOI approaches, namely the rapid melt growth (RMG) technique [16,17], could potentially produce thin film Ge with quality similar to that of bulk Ge. Therefore, by applying this technique, high quality thin film Ge could be produced and hence implemented for either PV cell or TPV cell applications leading to high performance energy conversion devices at reasonably low cost.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development of photodiode via the rapid melt growth (RMG) materials for energy conversion device

Zainal

Mitchell

McNeill

et al. 2020

IJEECS

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Germanium (Ge) photodiodes were fabricated with the new RMG crucible materials that were established in this study. Results show that Ge large square patterns with size of 208 µm x 208 µm were unable to be achieved if ion implantation process was used in formation of photodiode. Delamination can be observed on all test samples during polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) deposition at 620 oC. This result was in contrast to a previous intrinsic Ge test structure, where good formation of squares with size similar to that 208 µm x 208 µm had been successfully attained even with high annealing temperature above 938 oC. This indicates that doping through ion implantation has affected Ge film and caused delamination even at low temperature. However, good formations of Ge stripes were attained along with the ion implantation process in fabricating the photodiode. Results show that the sheet resistance of Ge stripe has significantly decreased compared to previous Ge resistors. The better resistance is due to the thicker (500 nm) Ge layer. In the case of Ge stripes with a p-i-n junction, only small fraction of test samples have shown a diode characteristic but with high leakage current. Results of I-V measurement show that a large fraction of test samples produced resistor characteristics. The high leakage current is believed due to the fact that the Ge films formed at this stage were polycrystalline in structure. Thus the grain size of Ge stripe has affected the performance. Slight changes on the I-V characteristic of single Ge can be observed when samples were tested under illumination. Therefore, it has potential to be used for future development of energy conversion device.

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Heteroepitaxy of High-Mobility Germanium on Sapphire (0001) with Magnetron Sputtering

Wen

Washington

et al. 2020

ACS Appl. Electron. Mater.

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As an excellent semiconductor material with low band gap and high carrier mobility, germanium is widely used in the semiconductor industry in photoelectronic devices, high-frequency radio frequency (rf) circuits and devices, etc. Compared to bulk germanium wafer and silicon-based germanium on insulator (GOI) materials, the germanium on sapphire (GOS) substrate offers a highly cost-effective solution with several important advantages, including low thermal expansion coefficient mismatch, high insulator resistivity, lower rf losses, and superior crosstalk suppression. In this work, we present a method to grow a high-quality thin germanium epitaxial film on a sapphire (0001) substrate using direct-current (DC) sputtering at an elevated temperature of 600 °C. We demonstrate that thermal annealing at 850 °C reduced the germanium (111) twinning, increased the size of crystalline domains in the germanium film and thus further improved the crystalline quality. For a film with a thickness of 500 nm, the hole Hall mobility increased to 440 cm2/V·s after thermal annealing, which is about 10 times more than that of the as-sputtered film. For a 2.0 μm film, the hole Hall mobility increased to 824 cm2/V·s, which has not been reported in the literature for a GOS film. This method offers a simple but efficient way to fabricate a GOS substrate for optical electronic device applications.

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Characterization of Rapid Melt Growth (RMG) Process for High Quality Thin Film Germanium on Insulator

Cited by 4 publications

References 12 publications

Electrical characterisation of PVD germanium resistors with rapid melt growth (RMG) process

Electrical characterisation of PVD germanium resistors with rapid melt growth (RMG) process

Development of photodiode via the rapid melt growth (RMG) materials for energy conversion device

Heteroepitaxy of High-Mobility Germanium on Sapphire (0001) with Magnetron Sputtering

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