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Mechanism of vertical Ge nano wire nucleation on Si (111) during subeutectic annealing and growth

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Abstract

The direct integration of Ge nanowires with silicon is of interest in multiple applications. In this work, we describe the growth of high-quality, vertically oriented Ge nanowires on Si (111) substrates utilizing a completely sub-Au-Si-eutectic annealing and growth procedure. With all other conditions remaining identical, annealing below the Au-Si eutectic results in successful heteroepitaxial nucleation and growth of Ge nanowires on Si substrate while annealing above the Au-Si eutectic leads to randomly oriented growth. A model is presented to elucidate the effect of the annealing temperature, in which we hypothesized that sub-Au-Si-eutectic annealing leads to the formation of a single and well-oriented interface, essential to template heteroepitaxial nucleation. These results are critically dependent on substrate preparation and lead to the creation of integrated nano wire systems with a low thermal budget process.

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Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency award N66001-08-1-2037. S. J. P. thanks the support by the Korean Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (KRF-2007-357-D00022).

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Correspondence to Chen Yang.

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Supplementary material can be viewed in this issue of the Journal of Materials Research by visiting http://journals.cambridge.org/jmr.

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Park, S.J., Chung, S.H., Kim, BJ. et al. Mechanism of vertical Ge nano wire nucleation on Si (111) during subeutectic annealing and growth. Journal of Materials Research 26, 2744–2748 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2011.313

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2011.313

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