Ultra strained Si and Ge for device applications

Full text: Strain-engineering is a key-technology in semiconductor-devices to modify band structure etc. Conventionally, it is induced by coherent growth of pairs of lattice-mismatched layers or, locally, by strain transfer. Recently, a complementary method based on elastic deformation of suspended constricted structures is developed. The thereby obtain strain values, 4.5 % in 13 nm thin Si nanowires and 3.1% in 1.5 μm thick Ge, considerably exceed the limits known for strained layer growth. A discussion is presented of using this method for the case of strain channel CMOS and the realization of a Ge laser for integration in Si. (author)