Liquid Phase Epitaxy SiGe Films on a CVD-grown SiGe/Si (001) Graded Film

Abstract SiGe films were grown on a chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown Si0.88Ge0.12/Si (001) graded film with different growth solution compositions using a temperature interval of 950-940 °C by liquid phase epitaxy (LPE). The LPE films grown on the CVD-grown SiGe/Si (001) graded film are ≥86% relaxed, much more relaxed than those on bare Si [1] since the existing threading dislocations in the CVD-grown SiGe/Si (001) graded film glide to create misfit dislocations without needing to nucleate new ones. The threading dislocation density of the LPE films is slightly lower than that of the CVD-grown SiGe films and on the same order of magnitude, ∼106 cm-2. Since the CVD-grown SiGe/Si (001) graded film was annealed for 4 h before the LPE growth occurred, the properties of the CVD-grown SiGe/Si (001) graded film were studied and we found that the CVD-grown SiGe/Si (001) graded film have SiGe islands appear all over the surface aligned along the crosshatch morphology and become more relaxed after annealing.