Scattering mechanisms in shallow undoped Si/SiGe quantum wells

Laroche, Dominique; Huang, S. -H.; Nielsen, Erik; Chuang, Y.; Li, J. -Y.; Liu, C. W.; Lu, Tzu -Ming

doi:10.1063/1.4933026

Scattering mechanisms in shallow undoped Si/SiGe quantum wells

Journal Article · Wed Oct 07 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · AIP Advances

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4933026· OSTI ID:1236235

Laroche, Dominique ^[1]; Huang, S. -H. ^[2]; Nielsen, Erik ^[1]; Chuang, Y. ^[2]; Li, J. -Y. ^[2]; Liu, C. W. ^[2]; Lu, Tzu -Ming ^[1]

Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
National Taiwan Univ., Taipei (Taiwan); National Nano Device Labs., Hsinchu (Taiwan)

We report the magneto-transport study and scattering mechanism analysis of a series of increasingly shallow Si/SiGe quantum wells with depth ranging from ~ 100 nm to ~ 10 nm away from the heterostructure surface. The peak mobility increases with depth, suggesting that charge centers near the oxide/semiconductor interface are the dominant scattering source. The power-law exponent of the electron mobility versus density curve, μ ∝ n^α, is extracted as a function of the depth of the Si quantum well. At intermediate densities, the power-law dependence is characterized by α ~ 2.3. At the highest achievable densities in the quantum wells buried at intermediate depth, an exponent α ~ 5 is observed. Lastly, we propose and show by simulations that this increase in the mobility dependence on the density can be explained by a non-equilibrium model where trapped electrons smooth out the potential landscape seen by the two-dimensional electron gas.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC04-94AL85000

OSTI ID:: 1236235

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1346100
OSTI ID: 22492121

Report Number(s):: SAND--2015-8681J; 607423

Journal Information:: AIP Advances, Journal Name: AIP Advances Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 5; ISSN AAIDBI; ISSN 2158-3226

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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