Zhang, Xuanchang;
Zeng, Haotian;
Jia, Hui;
Yu, Xueying;
Huo, Suguo;
Mtunzi, Makhayeni;
Deng, Huiwen;
... Tang, Mingchu; + view all
(2025)
Optimization of argon plasma pre-treatment for enhanced silicon surface preparation for germanium epitaxy.
Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics
10.1088/1361-6463/ae0fa6.
(In press).
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Abstract
Heteroepitaxial growth of Si-based semiconductor materials has become an efficient method for high-performance group-IV and III-V optoelectronic and electronic devices. As-manufactured epi-ready Si wafers frequently retain molecular residues even after high-temperature thermal deoxidation. Consequently, additional surface conditioning can be required to achieve the cleanliness and morphology necessary for high-quality epitaxial growth. This study evaluates the effectiveness of Ar plasma pre-treatment for surface preparation of Si substrates, which is used as a platform for heteroepitaxial growth of group-IV and III-V materials in molecular beam epitaxy systems. In this paper, a brief Ar plasma exposure (3 minutes at 30 SCCM) effectively removed native oxides and preserved atomically smooth surfaces, with root-mean-square roughness below 0.25 nm. Ge layers grown on plasma-treated offcut Si substrates exhibited a threading dislocation density of 6.9 × 107 cm-2, representing a ~55% reduction compared to non-treated substrates (1.3 × 108 cm-2). These findings demonstrate that Ar plasma pre-treatment provides a reliable and thermally efficient pathway for enhancing Si surface quality and supporting low-defect heteroepitaxial growth.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Optimization of argon plasma pre-treatment for enhanced silicon surface preparation for germanium epitaxy |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1088/1361-6463/ae0fa6 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/ae0fa6 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | As the Version of Record of this article is going to be / has been published on a gold open access basis under a CC BY 4.0 licence, this Accepted Manuscript is available for reuse under a CC BY 4.0 licence immediately. Everyone is permitted to use all or part of the original content in this article, provided that they adhere to all the terms of the licence https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 Although reasonable endeavours have been taken to obtain all necessary permissions from third parties to include their copyrighted content within this article, their full citation and copyright line may not be present in this Accepted Manuscript version. Before using any content from this article, please refer to the Version of Record on IOPscience once published for full citation and copyright details, as permissions may be required. All third party content is fully copyright protected and is not published on a gold open access basis under a CC BY licence, unless that is specifically stated in the figure caption in the Version of Record. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Electronic and Electrical Eng |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10215576 |
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