Ge beam treatment of Si substrate for molecular beam epitaxy

Abstract

A new surface cleaning method for Si MBE is described in which a very weak Ge beam flux is deposited on the surface for removing the thin passivative layer of SiO2 on the Si substrate. It has proved that the SiO2 will react with Ge at a relatively low temperature (620° C), and as a result, the oxide layer becomes volatile. Here the high temperature annealing in the conventional Shiraki method is no longer required, and since the oxide layer is removed in ultra high vacuum, only very little carbon contamination may occur. Furthermore, to reduce the excessive Ge on the substrate surface, Ge is deposited at 620° C and then the sample is annealed at 700° C; the residual Ge atoms on Si substrate can be reduced to less than 0.1 monolayer (ML). Ge beam treatment turns out to be an effective low-temperature Si surface-cleaning method, especially for the heteroepitaxial growth of GexSi1-x/Si.