Growth and thermal stability of pseudomorphic Ge1−yCy/Ge superlattices on Ge(001)

High quality Ge/Ge1−yCy superlattices with nominal carbon contents of 1.2% and 2.1% were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Ge(001). In transmission electron microscopy the layers are planar and perfectly pseudomorphic without any extended defects observable. The infrared absorption line at 529 cm−1 is attributed to the local vibrational mode of substitutional carbon in germanium. However, in contrast to Si1−yCy alloys where almost 100% of the C is substitutional under optimized growth conditions, x-ray diffraction measurements indicate that the efficiency of carbon incorporation onto substitutional sites is only about 30% for low temperature growth at TS=200 °C. It reduces further for higher growth temperatures to only about 10% at TS=300 °C. Post-growth annealing experiments indicate thermal stability up to 450 °C. Annealing at higher temperature results in a reduction of substitutional carbon content. As in the case of Si1−yCy alloys the built-in strain is relaxed by C diffusion and not by nucleation o...