Interplay Between Strain and Thickness on the Effective Carrier Lifetime of Buffer-Mediated Epitaxial Germanium Probed by the Photoconductance Decay Technique

Bhattacharya, Shuvodip; Johnston, Steven W.; Datta, Suman; Hudait, Mantu K.

doi:10.1021/acsaelm.3c00256

Interplay Between Strain and Thickness on the Effective Carrier Lifetime of Buffer-Mediated Epitaxial Germanium Probed by the Photoconductance Decay Technique

Journal Article · 19 May 2023 · ACS Applied Electronic Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.3c00256· OSTI ID:1992022

Bhattacharya, Shuvodip; ; Datta, Suman; Hudait, Mantu K.

We report contactless effective minority carrier lifetime of epitaxially grown unstrained and in-plane <110> biaxially tensile-strained (001) germanium (..epsilon..-Ge) epilayers measured using microwave-reflectance photoconductance decay measurements. Strained Ge epilayers were grown using InxGa1-xAs linearly graded buffers on (001) GaAs substrates. Using homogeneous excitation of unstrained Ge epilayers, thickness-dependent separation of minority carrier lifetime components under low injection conditions yielded a bulk lifetime of 114 +/- 2 ns and low surface recombination velocity of 21.3 +/- 0.04 cm/s. More notably, an effective minority carrier lifetime of >100 ns obtained from sub-50 nm 1.6% tensile-strained Ge epilayers showed no degradation relative to the unstrained counterpart. Detailed material characterization using X-ray diffractometry revealed successful strain transfer of 0.61 and 0.89% to the Ge epilayers via InxGa1-xAs metamorphic buffers and confirms pseudomorphic growth. Lattice coherence observed at the e-Ge epilayer and InxGa1-xAs buffer heterointerfaces via transmission electron microscopy substantiates the prime material quality achieved. The relatively high carrier lifetimes achieved are an indicator of excellent material quality and provide a path forward to realize low-threshold Ge laser sources.

Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office

DOE Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1992022

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5K00-85206; MainId:85979; UUID:feef46f3-ca5c-46d6-b90a-a3b4e5fec45d; MainAdminID:69981

Journal Information:: ACS Applied Electronic Materials, Journal Name: ACS Applied Electronic Materials Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 5

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (53)

Design, Theoretical, and Experimental Investigation of Tensile-Strained Germanium Quantum-Well Laser Structure Hudait, Mantu K.; Murphy-Armando, Felipe; Saladukha, Dzianis ACS Applied Electronic Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.1c00660	journal	October 2021
Silicon photonics Reed, G. T.; Mashanovich, G. Z.; Gardes, F. Y. 2014 7th International Silicon-Germanium Technology and Device Meeting (ISTDM) https://doi.org/10.1109/ISTDM.2014.6874661	conference	June 2014
Giant enhancement of n -type carrier mobility in highly strained germanium nanostructures Murphy-Armando, F.; Fahy, S. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 109, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3590334	journal	June 2011
Carrier lifetime studies in Ge using microwave and infrared light techniques Gaubas, E.; Bauža, M.; Uleckas, A. Materials Science in Semiconductor Processing, Vol. 9, Issue 4-5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mssp.2006.08.023	journal	August 2006
Academic and industry research progress in germanium nanodevices Pillarisetty, Ravi Nature, Vol. 479, Issue 7373 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10678	journal	November 2011
Roadmap to an Efficient Germanium-on-Silicon Laser: Strain vs. n-Type Doping Dutt, Birendra; Sukhdeo, Devanand S.; Nam, Donguk IEEE Photonics Journal, Vol. 4, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOT.2012.2221692	journal	October 2012
The determination of charge-carrier lifetime in silicon Klein, D.; Wuensch, F.; Kunst, M. physica status solidi (b), Vol. 245, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1002/pssb.200879544	journal	September 2008
Integrated germanium optical interconnects on silicon substrates Chaisakul, Papichaya; Marris-Morini, Delphine; Frigerio, Jacopo Nature Photonics, Vol. 8, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.73	journal	May 2014
Lasing in direct-bandgap GeSn alloy grown on Si Wirths, S.; Geiger, R.; von den Driesch, N. Nature Photonics, Vol. 9, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.321	journal	January 2015
Germanium based photonic components toward a full silicon/germanium photonic platform Reboud, V.; Gassenq, A.; Hartmann, J. M. Progress in Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials, Vol. 63, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcrysgrow.2017.04.004	journal	June 2017
High quality tensile-strained n-doped germanium thin films grown on InGaAs buffer layers by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition Jakomin, R.; de Kersauson, M.; El Kurdi, M. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 98, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3559231	journal	February 2011
Proper interpretation of photoconductive decay transients in semiconductors having finite surface recombination velocity Derhacobian, N.; Walton, J. T.; Luke, P. N. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 76, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.357304	journal	October 1994
All-silicon active and passive guided-wave components for λ = 1.3 and 1.6 µm Soref, R.; Larenzo, J. IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, Vol. 22, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1109/JQE.1986.1073057	journal	June 1986
A Nondestructive Method for Measuring the Spatial Distribution of Minority Carrier Lifetime in Silicon Wafer Mada, Yoichi Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 18, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1143/jjap.18.2171	journal	November 1979
Simultaneous Measurement of Minority-Carrier Lifetime in Single-Crystal CdTe Using Three Transient Decay Techniques Johnston, Steve; Zaunbrecher, Katherine; Ahrenkiel, Richard IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, Vol. 4, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2014.2339491	journal	September 2014
1.9% bi-axial tensile strain in thick germanium suspended membranes fabricated in optical germanium-on-insulator substrates for laser applications Gassenq, A.; Guilloy, K.; Osvaldo Dias, G. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 19 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4935590	journal	November 2015
Strain-Engineered Biaxial Tensile Epitaxial Germanium for High-Performance Ge/InGaAs Tunnel Field-Effect Transistors Clavel, Michael; Goley, Patrick; Jain, Nikhil IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society, Vol. 3, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1109/JEDS.2015.2394743	journal	May 2015
Impact of minority carrier lifetime on the performance of strained germanium light sources Sukhdeo, David S.; Gupta, Shashank; Saraswat, Krishna C. Optics Communications, Vol. 364 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optcom.2015.11.060	journal	April 2016
Si-Based GeSn Lasers with Wavelength Coverage of 2–3 μm and Operating Temperatures up to 180 K Margetis, Joe; Al-Kabi, Sattar; Du, Wei ACS Photonics, Vol. 5, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00938	journal	December 2017
Accurate strain measurements in highly strained Ge microbridges Gassenq, A.; Tardif, S.; Guilloy, K. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 108, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4953788	journal	June 2016
Integrated nanoelectronics for the future Chau, Robert; Doyle, Brian; Datta, Suman Nature Materials, Vol. 6, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2014	journal	November 2007
Predicted band gap of the new semiconductor SiGeSn Soref, Richard A.; Perry, Clive H. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 69, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.347704	journal	January 1991
Performance Comparisons Between Carbon Nanotubes, Optical, and Cu for Future High-Performance On-Chip Interconnect Applications Koo, Kyung-Hoae; Cho, Hoyeol; Kapur, Pawan IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 54, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1109/TED.2007.909045	journal	January 2007
Analysis of the interaction of a laser pulse with a silicon wafer: Determination of bulk lifetime and surface recombination velocity Luke, Keung L.; Cheng, Li‐Jen Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 61, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.337938	journal	March 1987
A contactless minority lifetime probe of heterostructures, surfaces, interfaces and bulk wafers Yablonovitch, E.; Gmitter, T. J. Solid-State Electronics, Vol. 35, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1016/0038-1101(92)90230-A	journal	March 1992
The study of charge carrier kinetics in semiconductors by microwave conductivity measurements Kunst, M.; Beck, G. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 60, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.337612	journal	November 1986
Observation of improved minority carrier lifetimes in high-quality Ge-on-insulator using time-resolved photoluminescence Nam, Donguk; Kang, Ju-Hyung; Brongersma, Mark L. Optics Letters, Vol. 39, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.39.006205	journal	January 2014
Detailed analysis of the microwave-detected photoconductance decay in crystalline silicon Lauer, K.; Laades, A.; Übensee, H. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 104, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3021459	journal	November 2008
Lasing in strained germanium microbridges Armand Pilon, F. T.; Lyasota, A.; Niquet, Y. -M. Nature Communications, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10655-6	journal	June 2019
Group IV Direct Band Gap Photonics: Methods, Challenges, and Opportunities Geiger, Richard; Zabel, Thomas; Sigg, Hans Frontiers in Materials, Vol. 2 https://doi.org/10.3389/fmats.2015.00052	journal	July 2015
Carrier lifetime dependence on doping, metal implants and excitation density in Ge and Si Gaubas, E.; Vanhellemont, J.; Simoen, E. Physica B: Condensed Matter, Vol. 401-402 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physb.2007.08.151	journal	December 2007
Calculation of critical layer thickness versus lattice mismatch for Ge _x Si _{1− x} /Si strained‐layer heterostructures People, R.; Bean, J. C. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 47, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.96206	journal	August 1985
Growth of highly tensile-strained Ge on relaxed InxGa1−xAs by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition Bai, Yu; Lee, Kenneth E.; Cheng, Chengwei Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 104, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3005886	journal	October 2008
Nondestructive technique to measure bulk lifetime and surface recombination velocities at the two surfaces by infrared absorption due to pulsed optical excitation Kousik, G. S.; Ling, Z. G.; Ajmera, P. K. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 72, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.352174	journal	July 1992
Empirical correlation for minority carrier lifetime to defect density profile in germanium on silicon grown by nanoscale interfacial engineering Sheng, Josephine J.; Leonhardt, Darin; Han, Sang M. Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B, Nanotechnology and Microelectronics: Materials, Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena, Vol. 31, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1116/1.4816488	journal	July 2013
Germanium for High Performance MOSFETs and Optical Interconnects Saraswat, Krishna; Kim, Donghyun; Krishnamohan, Tejas ECS Transactions, Vol. 16, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1149/1.2986748	journal	October 2008
Indium content measurements in metamorphic high electron mobility transistor structures by combination of x-ray reciprocal space mapping and transmission electron microscopy Chauveau, J. -M.; Androussi, Y.; Lefebvre, A. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 93, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1544074	journal	April 2003
Nanometre-scale electronics with III–V compound semiconductors del Alamo, Jesús A. Nature, Vol. 479, Issue 7373 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10677	journal	November 2011
Probing crystallographic orientation-specific carrier lifetimes in epitaxial Ge/AlAs and InGaAs/InP heterostructures Hudait, Mantu K.; Johnston, Steven W. Materials Advances, Vol. 3, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1039/D2MA00260D	journal	January 2022
Heterogeneously grown tunable group-IV laser on silicon Hudait, Mantu; Clavel, M.; Lester, L. SPIE Proceedings https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2218364	conference	February 2016
Heterogeneously-Grown Tunable Tensile Strained Germanium on Silicon for Photonic Devices Clavel, Michael; Saladukha, Dzianis; Goley, Patrick S. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 7, Issue 48 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5b07385	journal	November 2015
Monolithically Integrated Ge-on-Si Active Photonics Liu, Jifeng Photonics, Vol. 1, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics1030162	journal	July 2014
Excess carrier lifetimes in Ge layers on Si Geiger, R.; Frigerio, J.; Süess, M. J. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4865237	journal	February 2014
The Past, Present, and Future of Silicon Photonics Soref, Richard IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol. 12, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTQE.2006.883151	journal	January 2006
Band structure and optical gain of tensile-strained germanium based on a 30 band k⋅p formalism El Kurdi, Moustafa; Fishman, Guy; Sauvage, Sébastien Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 107, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3279307	journal	January 2010
Considerations for Ultimate CMOS Scaling Kuhn, K. J. IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 59, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1109/TED.2012.2193129	journal	July 2012
Multivalley Electron Conduction at the Indirect-Direct Crossover Point in Highly Tensile-Strained Germanium Clavel, M. B.; Murphy-Armando, F.; Xie, Y. Physical Review Applied, Vol. 18, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.18.064083	journal	December 2022
Direct bandgap germanium-on-silicon inferred from 57% 〈100〉 uniaxial tensile strain [Invited] Sukhdeo, David S.; Nam, Donguk; Kang, Ju-Hyung Photonics Research, Vol. 2, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1364/PRJ.2.0000A8	journal	April 2014
Measurement of Lifetime of Carriers in Semiconductors through Microwave Reflection Deb, S.; Nag, B. R. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 33, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1728779	journal	April 1962
Analysis of Ge micro-cavities with in-plane tensile strains above 2 % Millar, R. W.; Gallacher, K.; Frigerio, J. Optics Express, Vol. 24, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.24.004365	journal	February 2016
Advances in silicon-on-insulator optoelectronics Jalali, B.; Yegnanarayanan, S.; Yoon, T. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol. 4, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1109/2944.736081	journal	January 1998
Optically pumped GeSn micro-disks with 16% Sn lasing at 3.1 μm up to 180 K Reboud, V.; Gassenq, A.; Pauc, N. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5000353	journal	August 2017
Dimensionless solution of the equation describing the effect of surface recombination on carrier decay in semiconductors Sproul, A. B. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 76, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.357521	journal	September 1994

Similar Records

High Carrier Lifetimes in Epitaxial Germanium-Tin/Al(In)As Heterostructures with Variable Tin Compositions

Journal Article · 2022 · Journal of Materials Chemistry C · OSTI ID:1880807

Strain-Driven Evolution of Structural and Carrier Recombination Dynamics in Germanium

Journal Article · 2026 · Physical Review Applied · OSTI ID:3363383

GeSn-on-GaAs with photoconductive carrier lifetime >400 ns: role of substrate orientation and atomistic simulation

Journal Article · 2024 · Nanoscale · OSTI ID:2340120

Related Subjects

CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
MATERIALS SCIENCE
bulk lifetime
carrier lifetime
germanium
molecular beam epitaxy
photoconductance
surface recombination velocity
tensile strain
x-ray diffraction

Interplay Between Strain and Thickness on the Effective Carrier Lifetime of Buffer-Mediated Epitaxial Germanium Probed by the Photoconductance Decay Technique

Citation Formats

References (53)

Similar Records

Related Subjects