The n-type doping of Ge is a self-limiting process due to the formation of vacancy-donor complexes (DnV with n <= 4) that deactivate the donors. This work unambiguously demonstrates that the dissolution of the dominating P4V clusters in heavily phosphorus-doped Ge epilayers can be achieved by millisecond-flash lamp annealing at about 1050 K. The P4V cluster dissolution increases the carrier concentration by more than three-fold together with a suppression of phosphorus diffusion. Electrochemical capacitance-voltage measurements in conjunction with secondary ion mass spectrometry, positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy and theoretical calculations enabled us to address and understand a fundamental problem that has hindered so far the full integration of Ge with complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor technology.
@article{arxiv.2010.14985,
title = {Dissolution of donor-vacancy clusters in heavily doped n-type germanium},
author = {Slawomir Prucnal and Maciej O. Liedke and Xiaoshuang Wang and Maik Butterling and Matthias Posselt and Joachim Knoch and Horst Windgassen and Eric Hirschmann and Yonder Berencén and Lars Rebohle and Mao Wang and Enrico Napoltani and Jacopo Frigerio and Andrea Ballabio and Giovani Isella and René Hübner and Andreas Wagner and Hartmut Bracht and Manfred Helm and Shengqiang Zhou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.14985},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
19 pages, 5 figures, to be published at New J. Phys