Selective epitaxial growth of dot structures on patterned Si substrates by gas source molecular beam epitaxy

Abstract

Selective epitaxial growth of Ge dot structures is investigated to obtain highly regular dot arrays with excellent size uniformity in the nanoscale. The dot structures are grown in patterned fine windows ranging in diameter from 650 to 90 nm on Si(100) substrates covered with masks. The dimensions and number of the dots grown in a window significantly change depending on window size, growth temperature and time and the thickness of the Si buffer layer. These growth characteristics are considered to be induced by the Stranski-Krastanov growth mode and migration mechanism of Ge atoms on Si substrates. It is noted that Ge dots whose diameter is much smaller than the pattern size are formed with high uniformity and that the position is precisely controlled by SEG. The Ge dot structures are found to give rise to prominent luminescence with well separated phonon replicas and the energy position systematically changes when the growth conditions are varied.