Epitaxial growth of germanium dots on Si (001) surface covered by a very thin silicon nitride layer
The growth of Ge dots has been achieved by molecular beam epitaxy on a Si (001) surface covered by an ultra thin (20 ) silicon nitride Si3N4 layer. The Ge dots exhibit an epitaxial relationship with the underlying silicon substrate, despite the presence of the dielectric layer. The atomic force microscopy results show that the Ge dots have a hemispherical shape with 10 nm average size and the density of the dots is as high as 41011 cm?2. Moreover, we show that the silicon, grown in order to embed the Ge dots deposited on silicon nitride Si3N4 layer, exhibits a quasi-two-dimensional growth of single crystal.
germanium dots molecular beam epitaxy si3n4