Orientation control of intermediate-composition SiGe on insulator by low-temperature Al-induced crystallization

Abstract

Metal-induced crystallization has allowed for high-quality Si and Ge thin films on insulators at low temperatures; however, there has been difficulty for SiGe alloys of intermediate compositions.Here we demonstrate a large-grained (> 100 µm), 99% (111)-oriented Si0.4Ge0.6 layer on a glass substrate through layer exchange between Al and amorphous Si0.4Ge0.6 layers. Slow annealing below 350 °C is a key to suppressing nucleation and facilitating lateral growth. The use of the (111)-oriented SiGe layers as epitaxial templates will pave the way for integrating various materials monolithically on three-dimensional Si large-scale integrated circuits and on multi-functional displays.

Low temperature synthesis of highly oriented p-type Si1-xGex (x: 0–1) on an insulator by Al-induced layer exchange

“…38,40 Very recently, we fabricated highly (111)-oriented Si 0.4 Ge 0.6 using Al-induced layer exchange (ALILE) by tuning the growth conditions, that is, growth temperature, thicknesses of Al and SiGe layers, and interlayer thickness between SiGe and Al. 42 In this study, we demonstrate highly (111)-oriented, largegrained Si 1-x Ge x over the whole composition range. The origin of the large grain growth is discussed by comparing the growth properties of ALILE with those of conventional solidphase crystallization (SPC).…”

“…The SiGe composition was uniform in the plane for each sample, which is proposed to arise from the diffusion coefficients of Si and Ge in Al being almost equal. 41,42 Figures 2(a)-2(i) show the typical growth evolution of ALILE, observed using in-situ optical microscopy during annealing. These micrographs show the back surface of the samples observed through the transparent SiO 2 substrates.…”

Direct synthesis of multilayer graphene on an insulator by Ni-induced layer exchange growth of amorphous carbon

“…In the field of group-IV semiconductors including Si, [27][28][29][30][31] Ge, [32][33][34][35] and SiGe, 36,37 metal-induced layer exchange (MILE) allows large-grained (>30 lm) highly oriented thin films to be formed on insulators. In MILE, an amorphous semiconductor layer crystallizes by "layer exchange" between the amorphous layer and a catalyst metal layer.…”

Fabrication of ultrathin poly-crystalline SiGe-on-insulator layer for thermoelectric applications

“…An ultrathin SiGe-on-insulator (SGOI) layer is essential to fabricate the SiGe nanowire by lithographic technology. In the field of ULSI devices, such as a metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor, there are a variety of fabrication methods of single-crystalline SiGe (sc-SiGe) thin film grown on SiO 2 /Si substrates [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Most of them are difficult and costly since their process is complicated and is not fit for a large-area formation.…”