Effect of thermal annealing on structural properties of GeSn thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy

oleh: Z. P. Zhang, Y. X. Song, Y. Y. Li, X. Y. Wu, Z. Y. S. Zhu, Y. Han, L. Y. Zhang, H. Huang, S. M. Wang

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: AIP Publishing LLC 2017-10-01

Deskripsi

GeSn alloy with 7.68% Sn concentration grown by molecular beam epitaxy has been rapidly annealed at different temperatures from 300°C to 800°C. Surface morphology and roughness annealed below or equal to 500°C for 1 min have no obvious changes, while the strain relaxation rate increasing. When the annealing temperature is above or equal to 600°C, significant changes occur in surface morphology and roughness, and Sn precipitation is observed at 700°C. The structural properties are analyzed by reciprocal space mapping in the symmetric (004) and asymmetric (224) planes by high resolution X-ray diffraction. The lateral correlation length and the mosaic spread are extracted for the epi-layer peaks in the asymmetric (224) diffraction. The most suitable annealing temperature to improve both the GeSn lattice quality and relaxation rate is about 500°C.