Study of Stress Evolution of Germanium Nanocrystals embedded in Silicon Oxide Matrix

TEM study on the evolution of Ge nanocrystals in Si oxide matrix as a function of Ge concentration and the Si reduction process

Growth and evolution of germanium (Ge) nanocrystals embedded into a silicon oxide (SiO2) system have been studied based on the Ge content of co-sputtered Ge-SiO2 films using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Xray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). It was found that when the proportion of Ge relative to Ge oxide is 20%, TEM showed that annealing the samples at 800C for 60 min resulted in...

Correlation between matrix structural order and compressive stress exerted on silicon nanocrystals embedded in silicon-rich silicon oxide

Silicon nanocrystals embedded in a silicon oxide matrix were deposited by radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering. By means of Raman spectroscopy, we have found that a compressive stress is exerted on the silicon nanocrystal cores. The stress varies as a function of silicon concentration in the silicon-rich silicon oxide layers varies, which can be attributed to changes of nanocrystal env...

Carrier storage in Ge nanocrystals grown on silicon oxide by a two step dewetting / nucleation process

In microelectronics, dimensionality miniaturization theoretically leads to reliability increase. However, an important concern in silicon technology is the effective reliability of MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) devices such as MOSFETs (MOS field-effect transistors) and memory cells as they are scaled to smaller dimensions. Indeed, as the silicon dioxide (SiO2) in CMOS technology is thinned be...

Multiscale Modeling of Formation and Structure of Oxide Embedded Silicon and Germanium Nanocrystals

Charge storage in nanocrystal systems: Role of defects?

Wet thermal oxidations of polycrystalline Si0.54Ge0.46 films at 600°C for 30 and 50 min were carried out. A stable mixed oxide was obtained for films that were oxidized for 50 min. For film oxidized for 30 min, however, a mixed oxide with Ge nanocrystallites embedded in the oxide matrix was obtained. A trilayer gate stack structure that consisted of tunnel oxide/oxidized polycrystalline Si0.54G...