(Digital Presentation) SiGe Epitaxial Growth on Si Substrate Using Al-Ge Paste

Abstract

Silicon-germanium (SiGe) has been considered as an important alternative material to silicon due to its high carrier mobility, low power consumption and excellent performance [1]. However, due to both material unique phase diagram with melting points separated by 376 °C, it is too difficult to realize a good bulk quality of polycrystalline-free SiGe single crystals with controlled Ge contents. In this work, crystalline thick epitaxial layers of SiGe with Ge contents exceeding 30% are fabricated by screen-printing technology on Si wafers. As illustrated in Figure 1, Aluminum-germanium (AlGe) paste with a mole ratio of 7:3 was prepared and screen-printed on p-type Cz-Si <111> substrate, dried at 100 °C for 10 minutes and then annealed in Ar ambient using IR image furnace at 900 °C for 5 minutes. The Al begins to melt at 660 °C, dissolving the silicon wafer surface and the Ge in the paste. The melted Al, Si and Ge form the liquid phase of the Al-Si-Ge, which when cooling process start, regrown epitaxially at the melt/Si interface to form the Al-doped SiGe crystalline layer. The formed SiGe was observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX). As can be seen in the cross-sectional SEM image in Figure 2, SiGe layer of about 20mm was formed on the Si substrate surface. It is worth mentioning that the SiGe/Si interface is formed straight as the reaction stopped perfectly on façade <111> forming SiGe layer. EDX mapping of elements suggests that the Al in the Al-Si-Ge liquid phase formed at high temperature is segregated from the liquid to the Al-Ge paste layer during the cooling process and remains only as dopant in the SiGe layer due to its low solid solubility in Si and Ge. The Al-Ge paste residue layer will be etched chemically and further step of chemical mechanical polishing will be performed to improve the surface flatness of SiGe layer to be an epi-ready SiGe/Si substrate for different semiconductor devices applications. Reference [1] M. L. Lee and E. A. Fitzgerald, Strained Si/strained Ge dual-channel heterostructures on relaxed Si0.5Ge0.5 for symmetric mobility p-type and n-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors, Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 4202 (2003). Figure 1