RESUMO
It has been highly debated whether the thermal conductivity κ of a disordered SiGe alloy can be lowered by redistributing its constituent species so as to form an ordered superlattice. By ab initio calculations backed by systematic experiments, we show that Ge segregation occurring during epitaxial growth can lead to κ values not only lower than the alloy's, but also lower than the perfect superlattice values. Thus we theoretically demonstrate that κ does not monotonically decrease as the Si- and Ge-rich regions become more sharply defined. Instead, an intermediate concentration profile is able to lower κ below both the alloy limit (total intermixing) and also the abrupt interface limit (zero intermixing). This unexpected result is attributed to the peculiar behavior of the phonon mean free path in realistic Si/Ge superlattices, which shows a crossover from abrupt-interface- to alloylike values at intermediate phonon frequencies of â¼3 THz. Our calculated κ's quantitatively agree with the measurements when the realistic, partially intermixed profiles produced by segregation are considered.
RESUMO
A multilayer of GeSi nanowires separated with Si spacers was readily self-assembled on miscut Si (001) substrates with 8 degrees off toward (110). The nanowires oriented along the miscut direction were very small and compactly arranged on the vicinal surface. Systematic photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy studies were carried out on the GeSi nanowires. With increasing excitation power, a sublinear power dependent PL intensity and a blue-shift of -7 meV/decade with nearly constant full width of half maximum (FWHM) of PL peaks from multilayer GeSi nanowires was observed. These results indicated a typical type-III band alignment of GeSi nanowires/Si. The blue-shift was attributed to band bending effect with the increase of photon-generated carriers. The nearly independent FWHM of PL peaks with the excitation power was explained in terms of the formation of mini-band due to strong coupling of holes in closely neighboring nanowires. An activation energy of -12 meV was extracted from the temperature-dependent intensity of PL peaks of the nanowires, which was assigned to be the exciton binding energy around the nanowires. Based on Raman spectra, the Ge content in GeSi nanowires was estimated to be -61%.
RESUMO
Multilayer ordered GeSi quantum dots (QDs) with thin Si spacers were obtained via self-assembly on pit-patterned Si(001) substrates. The lateral ordering of GeSi QDs predetermined by the periodic pit pattern results in remarkably improved size uniformity in comparison with random QDs on flat substrates. A much stronger and narrower photoluminescence (PL) peak from ordered QDs were observed than that from random ones, particularly at high excitation power. Such enhanced PL signal was attributed to the high density of states and the uniform distribution of excitons in the ordered and uniform QDs, which can efficiently suppress the Auger effect and the Coulomb screening effect. Moreover, anomalous narrowing of the PL peak from the ordered QDs with the excitation power was observed, which was explained in terms of distributed feedback associated with the periodic stacked GeSi QDs.
Assuntos
Germânio/química , Nanopartículas/química , Pontos Quânticos , Silício/química , Eletroquímica , Luminescência , Microscopia Eletrônica de Transmissão , Tamanho da PartículaRESUMO
A new scalable approach has been developed for fabricating large-scale pit patterns with controllable periodicity on Si(001) substrates. The fabrication processes start with self-assembling a monolayer of polystyrene (PS) spheres on hydrogenated Si(001) substrates. A novel net-like mask in combination of the Au pattern thermally evaporated in between the PS spheres and the Au-catalyzed SiO(2) around them is naturally formed. After selective etching of Si by KOH solution, two-dimensionally ordered pits with a periodicity equal to the diameter of the PS spheres in the range from micrometers to less than 100 nm can be obtained. The shape of the pits can be modulated by controlling the chemical etching time. Such pit-patterned Si substrates facilitate the formation of ordered Si-based nanostructures, such as ordered self-assembled GeSi quantum dots, by deposition of Ge using molecular beam epitaxy.
