Solving thermal issues in tensile-strained Ge microdisks

International audienceWe propose to use a Ge-dielectric-metal stacking to allow one to address both thermal management with the metal as an efficient heat sink and tensile strain engineering with the buried dielectric as a stressor layer. This scheme is particularly useful for the development of Ge-based optical sources. We demonstrate experimentally the relevance of this approach by comparing the optical response of tensile-strained Ge microdisks with an Al heat sink or an oxide pedestal. Photoluminescence indicates a much reduced temperature rise in the microdisk (16 K with Al pedestal against 200 K with SiO 2 pedestal under a 9 mW continuous wave optical pumping). An excellent agreement is found with finite element modeling of the temperature rise. This original stacking combining metal and dielectrics is promising for integrated photonics where thermal management is an issue

Low-threshold optically pumped lasing in highly strained Ge nanowires

The integration of efficient, miniaturized group IV lasers into CMOS architecture holds the key to the realization of fully functional photonic-integrated circuits. Despite several years of progress, however, all group IV lasers reported to date exhibit impractically high thresholds owing to their unfavorable bandstructures. Highly strained germanium with its fundamentally altered bandstructure has emerged as a potential low-threshold gain medium, but there has yet to be any successful demonstration of lasing from this seemingly promising material system. Here, we demonstrate a low-threshold, compact group IV laser that employs germanium nanowire under a 1.6% uniaxial tensile strain as the gain medium. The amplified material gain in strained germanium can sufficiently surmount optical losses at 83 K, thus allowing the first observation of multimode lasing with an optical pumping threshold density of ~3.0 kW cm^-^2. Our demonstration opens up a new horizon of group IV lasers for photonic-integrated circuits.Comment: 31 pages, 9 figure

Enhanced light emission from improved homogeneity in biaxially suspended Germanium membranes from curvature optimization

A silicon compatible light source is crucial to develop a fully monolithic silicon photonics platform. Strain engineering in suspended Germanium membranes has offered a potential route for such a light source. However, biaxial structures have suffered from poor optical properties due to unfavorable strain distributions. Using a novel geometric approach and finite element modelling (FEM) structures with improved strain homogeneity were designed and fabricated. Micro-Raman (μ-Raman) spectroscopy was used to determine central strain values. Micro-photoluminescence (μ-PL) was used to study the effects of the strain profiles on light emission; we report a PL enhancement of up to 3x by optimizing curvature at a strain value of 0.5% biaxial strain. This geometric approach offers opportunity for enhancing the light emission in Germanium towards developing a practical on chip light source

Advanced Silicon and Germanium Transistors for Future P-channel MOSFET Applications

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Strain Engineering for Advanced Silicon, Germanium and Germanium-Tin Transistors

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Strained Multiple - Gate Transistors With Si/SiC and Si/SiGe Heterojunctions

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Tensilely strained germanium nanomembranes for infrared light emitting devices

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston Universitydevelopment of group-IV semiconductor lasers has attracted significant attention in recent years, since it represents the key missing ingredient for the large-scale monolithic integration of electronics and photonics in a CMOS-compatible fashion. The main challenge is to convert the indirect-bandgap group-IV materials into efficient light emitters. Many researchers have focused on improving the light emission efficiency of these materials in the near-infrared (NIR) spectral region, to replace the existing chip-to- chip communication technology with optical links. At the same time, group-IV lasers operating at mid-infrared (MIR) wavelengths also possess many important applications, mainly in the area of chemical and biological sensing, such as trace-gas detection, environmental monitoring, medical diagnostics, and industrial process control. Motivated by these applications, here I focus on improving the light emission efficiency of germanium (Ge). The small energy difference between its direct and indirect bandgaps can be further decreased with the introduction of tensile strain, leading to significantly improved radiative efficiency. At the same time, the bandgap energy shifts into the technologically important 2.1-2.5 µm MIR atmospheric transmission window. At 1.9% tensile strain, Ge even becomes a direct-bandgap semiconductor. In this work, tensile strain is introduced in Ge nanomembranes (NMs), i.e., single-crystal sheets with nanoscale thicknesses, through the application of mechanical stress. Our strain-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements performed on these NMs demonstrate a significant red-shift and enhancement in the emission spectra with increasing strain. PL measurement results obtained with a 24-nm-thick NM also reveal that the membrane is converted into direct-bandgap Ge with the application of 2% tensile strain. Furthermore, theoretical analysis of the high-strain PL spectra shows that population inversion can be achieved in these ultrathin NMs with gain values as high as 300 cm−1. Two-dimensional periodic structures fabricated on the top surface of such membranes result in further enhanced light collection through first-order diffraction of the in-plane emitted luminescence. Furthermore, the cavity modes of these periodic structures are also resolved in the strain-dependent PL spectra. These results are promising for the demonstration of Ge NM lasers operating in the technologically important 2.1-2.5 µm spectral region for potential applications in biochemical sensing and spectroscopy

Strain engineering for advanced transistor structure

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH