학술논문

Verifying the band gap narrowing in tensile strained Ge nanowires by electrical means.
Document Type
Article
Source
Nanotechnology. 4/2/2021, Vol. 32 Issue 14, p1-5. 5p.
Subject
*BAND gaps
*NANOWIRES
*OPTICAL measurements
*LIGHT sources
*MAGNITUDE (Mathematics)
*GERMANIUM films
Language
ISSN
0957-4484
Abstract
Group-IV based light sources are one of the missing links towards fully CMOS compatible photonic circuits. Combining both silicon process compatibility and a pseudo-direct band gap, germanium is one of the most viable candidates. To overcome the limitation of the indirect band gap and turning germanium in an efficient light emitting material, the application of strain has been proven as a promising approach. So far the experimental verification of strain induced bandgap modifications were based on optical measurements and restricted to moderate strain levels. In this work, we demonstrate a methodology enabling to apply tunable tensile strain to intrinsic germanium nanowires and simultaneously perform in situ optical as well as electrical characterization. Combining I/V measurements and μ-Raman spectroscopy at various strain levels, we determined a decrease of the resistivity by almost three orders of magnitude for strain levels of ∼5%. Thereof, we calculated the strain induced band gap narrowing in remarkable accordance to recently published simulation results for moderate strain levels up to 3.6%. Deviations for ultrahigh strain values are discussed with respect to surface reconfiguration and reduced charge carrier scattering time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]