Formation of nanostructured germanium-on-insulator for integration of multi-functional materials on a panel

Abstract

Single-crystal germanium-on-insulator (GOI) structures are essential to integrate high-speed transistors, high-efficiency solar cells, and non-volatile spintronic memories on a panel, because GOI structures can be used as templates for epitaxial growth of multi-functional materials, as well as channel layers with high-carrier mobility. We investigate formation of high-density nanostructured single crystalline GOI templates by SiGe-mixing-triggered rapid melting growth. The GOI structures consisting of dense strip-arrays and mesh-networks are examined. For strip-array patterns, rotation in crystal orientation along the growth direction is observed. However, such crystal rotation has been completely suppressed by employing mesh-network patterns. This enables high-density single-crystal GOI templates with narrow spacing (<500nm). Moreover, epitaxial growth of Ge on the GOI templates is examined by a molecular beam technique.