Silicon-based semiconductor heterostructures: column IV bandgap engineering

Abstract

The use of strained layer epitaxy to grow high-quality Ge/sub x/Si/sub 1-x//Si heterostructures and their application to a wide range of heterostructure devices are addressed. The author reviews the mechanisms of strained layer growth, the bandstructure of the resulting material, and its use in test devices, including superlattice avalanche photodiodes for fiber optic communication, intrasubband optical detectors and arrays operating in the 10-15 mu m wavelength range, mobility enhanced modulation-doped transistors, heterojunction bipolar transistors with cutoff frequencies of 75 GHz, and negative resistance devices based on resonant tunneling and real-space carrier transfer. >