Issue 4, 2021

Nanoscale growth of a Sn-guided SiGeSn alloy on Si (111) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

Abstract

Here, SiGeSn nanostructures were grown via molecular beam epitaxy on a Si (111) substrate with the assistance of Sn droplets. Owing to the thermal effect and the compressive strain induced by a lattice mismatch, Si and Sn atoms were successfully incorporated into the Ge matrix during the Sn-guided Ge deposition process. A low growth temperature of 350 °C produced a variety of SiGeSn nanostructures of different sizes, attributed to the variation of the initial Sn droplet size. Using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, the Sn, Si and Ge contents of a defect-free SiGeSn nanoisland were approximately determined to be 0.05, 0.09 and 0.86, respectively. Furthermore, as the growth temperature increased past 600 °C, the growth direction of the nanostructure was changed thermally from out-of-plane to in-plane. Meanwhile, the stacked SiGeSn nanowires grown along the 〈112〉 direction remained defect-free, though some threading dislocations were observed in the smooth SiGeSn nanowires along the 〈110〉 direction. These results offer a novel method to grow Si-based SiGeSn nanostructures while possessing important implications for fabricating further optoelectronic devices.

Graphical abstract: Nanoscale growth of a Sn-guided SiGeSn alloy on Si (111) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 Aug 2020
Accepted
18 Nov 2020
First published
19 Nov 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale Adv., 2021,3, 997-1004

Nanoscale growth of a Sn-guided SiGeSn alloy on Si (111) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

L. Wang, Y. Zhang, H. Sun, J. You, Y. Miao, Z. Dong, T. Liu, Z. Jiang and H. Hu, Nanoscale Adv., 2021, 3, 997 DOI: 10.1039/D0NA00680G

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