A TEM study of strained SiGe/Si and related heteroepitaxial structures

The role of SiGe/Si heterostructures and related materials has become increasingly important within the last few decades. In order to increase the scale of integration, however, devices with active elements not larger than few tens of nanometer have been recently introduced. There is, therefore, a strong need for an analytical technique capable of giving information about submicron-sized components. An investigation on a nanometre scale can be performed by the combination of a fully equipped Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) with a Field Emission Gun (PEG) electron source, which enables one to use a wide range of analytical techniques with an electron probe as small as 0.5 nm. In this work, two different types of SiGe/Si-based devices were investigated. Strained-Si n-channel MOSFETs. The use of Strained-Si n-channel grown on SiGe should improve both carrier mobility and transconductance with respect to conventional MOSFETs. Materials analysed in this work showed an extremely high transconductance but a rather low mobility. In order to relate their microstructural properties to their electrical performance, as well as to improve the device design, a full quantitative and qualitative structural characterisation was performed. SiGe Multiple Quantum Wells (MQW) IR detectors Light detection is achieved by collecting the photogenerated carriers, injected from the SiGe QWs layers into the Si substrate. A key factor is the Ge profile across a single QW, since it governs the band structure and therefore the device performances. Four different TEM techniques were used to determine the Ge distribution across a single well, showing an overall good agreement among the results. The Ge profiles broadening, consistent with data available in literature, was successfully explained and theoretically predicted by the combined effect of Ge segregation and gas dwell times within the reactor. (author)