Abstract

We have explored the microstructure and local interface strain in the poly-Si1−x Ge x /SiO2/Si tri-layer system with ultrathin oxides. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and high-resolution X-ray diffraction rocking curves (HR-RC) and two-dimensional reciprocal space mapping (2D-RSM) were the main characterization tools. The poly-Si1−x Ge x /SiO2/Si structures have x=0, 0.2, and 0.35 for ultrathin oxides (2.0–3.0 nm). The result shows that for the adopted growth process, the poly grain size depends very strongly on the Ge concentration, and it increases with increasing Ge mole fraction. In turn, this increase of the grain size in the poly-Si1−x Ge x /SiO2/Si reduces the strain in the film, which then affects the interface strain at the lower SiO2/Si interface. In addition, the presence of defects at the SiO2/Si interface was found to be …

Date

2003

Authors

LL Ye, A Thölén, AP Jacob, T Myrberg, O Nur, Magnus Willander

Journal

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics

Volume

14

Pages

247-254

Publisher

Kluwer Academic Publishers