TEM and STEM Observations of a Flat Continuous Silicon-Germanium Thin Film Epitaxially Grown on Porous Silicon

Abstract

Strain-relaxed SiGe is an attractive material for use as a substrate of strained Si, in which carrier mobility is higher than that of bulk Si. The concept of this study is the use of porous Si as a sponge like substrate so that a SiGe lattice can relax without introducing dislocations. We produced porous Si specimens by electrochemical anodization and annealed them under a H 2 atmosphere. Then, SiGe thin films were grown by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy. We observed the microstructure of the specimens using transmission electron microscopy. The result showed that we succeeded in producing a single-crystal continuous Si 0.73 Ge 0.27 film with a 10% relaxation ratio and a low dislocation density on porous Si.