Development of a method for low-temperature fabrication of crystalline n-type germanium layers on plastic substrates with a gold catalyst

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K15458
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 30010:Crystal engineering-related
• Research Institution: Fukuoka University
• Principal Investigator: Kasahara Kenji 福岡大学, 理学部, 助教 (00706864)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: ゲルマニウム / 低温形成 / 金誘起層交換成長

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, we improved the multi-layer gold-induced layer exchange growth (ML-GIC) method, which is developed by the principal investigator, and tried to reduce the hole concentration caused by defects in the Ge crystal film for aiming at low-temperature formation of n-type Ge crystals. Instead of the (a-Ge / Au) x multilayer structure used in the conventional ML-GIC method, an a-Ge layer doped Au , namely a GeAu layer, was used. Even in GIC using the GeAu layer, the formation of a (111) oriented Ge crystal layer was confirmed by X-ray diffraction and electron backscatter spectroscopy methods. However, the size of the Ge grains is about 120 um, which is about 1/8 times as large as that for the conventional ML-GIC method, and the hole concentration also increases due to the increase in grain boundaries caused by the decrease in crystal size.

Free Research Field

半導体物性

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

従来の多層金誘起層交換成長(ML-GIC)法で用いていた(a-Ge/Au)x多層構造の代わりに，a-Ge中にAuをドーピングしたGeAu層を用いたGICプロセスにおいても (111)配向したGe結晶層の形成が確認されたことは，Ge結晶の低温形成の作製工程を大幅に簡素化できたという意味で産業応用的に意義深い結果であると言える．