Tensile strained germanium (ε-Ge) layers heterogeneously
integrated on Si substrates are of technological importance for nanoscale
transistors and photonics. In this work, the tunable tensile strained
(0% to 1.2%) ε-Ge layers were grown by solid source molecular
beam epitaxy using GaAs and linearly graded In
x
Ga1–x
As as intermediate
buffers, and their structural and metal-oxide semiconductor capacitor
(MOS-Cs) properties were analyzed as a function of strain and process
conditions. X-ray topography measurements displayed no visible thermal
crack and a low thermal stress of ∼50 MPa. Temperature dependent
strain relaxation properties, studied by X-ray and Raman analyses,
confirmed that the tensile strain amount of 1.2% was well preserved
within the ε-Ge layer when annealed up to 550 °C. Further,
transmission electron microscopic study revealed a good quality 1.2%
strained ε-Ge/In0.17Ga0.83As heterointerface.
In addition, unstrained Ge (0% ε-Ge) MOS-Cs with atomic layer
deposited Al2O3 and thermally grown GeO2 composite gate dielectrics of varying oxidation times (0.25–7.5
min) at 550 °C exhibited a low interface state density (D
it) of ∼2.5 × 1011 eV–1 cm–2 at 5 min oxidation duration.
The minimum oxidation time needed for good capacitance–voltage
(C–V) characteristics on
0.2% ε-Ge is inadequate to accomplish similar C–V characteristics on 1.2% ε-Ge MOS-C,
due to the higher strain field impeding the formation of the GeO2 interface passivation layer at lower oxidation duration.
In addition, with the trade-off between the minimum D
it and minimum equivalent oxide thickness values, ∼1.5
min is found to be an optimum oxidation time for good quality 1.2%
ε-Ge MOS-C. The minimum D
it values
of 1.36 × 1011 and 2.06 × 1011 eV–1 cm–2 for 0.2% and 1.2% ε-Ge,
respectively, were determined for 4 nm Al2O3 with 5 min thermal oxidation at 550 °C. Therefore, the successful
monolithic integration of tunable tensile strain Ge on Si with structural
defects and MOS-Cs analyses offer a path for the development of tensile
strained Ge-based nanoscale transistors.