Semiconducting Ge–Si–Fe alloy grown on Si(100) substrate by reactive deposition epitaxy

1077-3118

AIP Digital Archive

Physics

In this letter, we report a semiconducting Ge–Si–Fe alloy thin film grown on Si(100) by reactive deposition epitaxy using high vacuum evaporation technique. This work is based on the idea that the band structure of β-FeSi2 will be changed with part of the Si atoms in the lattice replaced by Ge atoms. An iron film was first deposited on a SiGe/Si(100) structure, then the alloy was formed during an annealing process. Auger electron spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction results indicate that the new alloy film can be regarded as a distorted β-FeSi2 thin film with the participation of Ge. The direct band gap of the Ge–Si–Fe alloy is determined to be 0.83 eV by optical transmission measurements, which indicate a redshift of the band gap with regard to that of β-FeSi2 (Eg=0.87 eV) thin films. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

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