Laser doping for ohmic contacts in n-type Ge

Abstract

We achieved ohmic contacts down to 5 K on standard n-doped Ge samples by creating a strongly doped thin Ge layer between the metallic contacts and the Ge substrate. Thanks to the laser doping technique used, gas immersion laser doping, we could attain extremely large doping levels above the solubility limit, and thus reduce the metal/doped Ge contact resistance. We tested independently the influence of the doping concentration and doped layer thickness and showed that the ohmic contact improves when increasing the doping level and is not affected when changing the doped thickness. Furthermore, we characterised the doped Ge/Ge contact, showing that at high doping its contact resistance is the dominant contribution to the total contact resistance.