AVS 49th International Symposium
    Electronic Materials and Devices Tuesday Sessions
       Session EL+SC-TuM

Invited Paper EL+SC-TuM5
Device Quality III-V Compound Semiconductor Epitaxy on Si Via SiGe Interlayers

Tuesday, November 5, 2002, 9:40 am, Room C-107

Session: Heterojunctions
Presenter: S.A. Ringel, Ohio State University
Authors: S.A. Ringel, Ohio State University
C.L. Andre, Ohio State University
A. Khan, Ohio State University
M. Gonzalez, Ohio State University
M.K. Hudait, Ohio State University
E.A. Fitzgerald, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
J.A. Carlin, AmberWave Systems Corporation
M.T. Currie, AmberWave Systems Corporation
C.W. Leitz, AmberWave Systems Corporation
T.A. Langdo, AmberWave Systems Corporation
Correspondent: Click to Email
Integration of III-V compounds with Si using direct epitaxial approaches has been an area of intense interest for years. Achieving this would enable a complement of electronic and optoelectronic capabilities that would generate new circuit functions with higher speed, and potentially simpler architecture. There is also substantial interest in III-V/Si integration where the primary purpose for Si is as an alternative substrate for III-V solar cells, which are conventionally grown on Ge or GaAs substrates. Compared to Si, these substrates are expensive, brittle and heavy, which are issues for this application. For both of these directions, the materials issues of how to integrate III-V compounds with Si without degrading electronic properties due to the mismatch in structural, thermal and chemical properties so that high performance devices can be achieved are the same. Here we show that growth of compositionally graded SiGe interlayers to accommodate lattice strain between a Si wafer and III-V epitaxial structures, coupled with monolayer-scale control over the formation of the initial III-V/IV interface to eliminate anti-phase domain disorder and block interface diffusion, together yield high quality AlGaAs/GaAs and InGaP/GaAs layers, heterostructures and minority carrier devices. Time resolved photoluminescence measurements of III-V double heterostructures reveal record high minority carrier lifetimes for GaAs on Si in excess of 10 nanoseconds, which is attributed to the simultaneous elimination of anti-phase domains and reduction of residual threading dislocation densities to below 1x10@super 6@ cm@super -2@. SIMS and capacitance-voltage measurements show that autodoping is effectively eliminated for GaAs grown on Ge/SiGe/Si, with no additional background impurities detected in the GaAs layers grown on these substrates. Solar cells are used as examples of minority carrier devices to show that high performance comparable to similar devices grown on conventional substrates has been achieved, with record voltage output for III-V cells grown on Si.