Ge-on-Si Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition for Low-Cost Photodetectors

Author

Littlejohns, C.G. ; Khokhar, A.Z. ; Thomson, D.J. ; Hu, Y. ; Basset, L. ; Reynolds, S.A. ; Mashanovich, G.Z. ; Reed, G.T. ; Gardes, F.Y.

Author_Institution

Optoelectron. Res. Centre, Univ. of Southampton, Southampton, UK

Volume

7

Issue

4

fYear

2015

fDate

Aug. 2015

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

8

Abstract

The development of low-thermal-budget Ge-on-Si epitaxial growth for the fabrication of low-cost Ge-on-Si devices is highly desirable for the field of silicon photonics. At present, most Ge-on-Si growth techniques require high growth temperatures, followed by cyclic annealing at temperatures > 800°C, often for a period of several hours. Here, we present a low-temperature (400°C) low-cost plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) Ge-on-Si growth study and, subsequently, fabricate a high-speed zero-bias 12.5-Gb/s waveguide integrated photodetector with a responsivity of 0.1 A/W at a wavelength of 1550 nm. This low-energy device demonstrates the feasibility of the PECVD method for the fabrication of low-cost low-thermal-budget Ge-on-Si devices.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; germanium; integrated optoelectronics; photodetectors; plasma CVD; silicon; Ge-Si; Ge-on-Si plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition; bit rate 12.5 Gbit/s; cyclic annealing; epitaxial growth; high-speed zero-bias waveguide integrated photodetector; low-cost photodetectors; low-energy device; responsivity; temperature 400 degC; wavelength 1550 nm; Annealing; Crystals; Photodetectors; Plasma temperature; Rough surfaces; Silicon; Surface roughness; Germanium; integrated optoelectronics; optical device fabrication; photodiodes; silicon photonics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Journal, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1943-0655

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JPHOT.2015.2456069

Filename

7155474