TY  - JOUR
AU  - von den Driesch, Nils
AU  - Wirths, Stephan
AU  - Troitsch, Rene
AU  - Mussler, Gregor
AU  - Breuer, Uwe
AU  - Moutanabbir, Oussama
AU  - Grützmacher, Detlev
AU  - Buca, Dan
TI  - Thermally activated diffusion and lattice relaxation in (Si)GeSn materials
JO  - Physical review materials
VL  - 4
IS  - 3
SN  - 2475-9953
CY  - College Park, MD
PB  - APS
M1  - FZJ-2020-01340
SP  - 033604
PY  - 2020
AB  - Germanium-tin (GeSn) alloys have emerged as a promising material for future optoelectronics, energy harvesting, and nanoelectronics owing to their direct band gap and compatibility with existing Si-based electronics. Yet, their metastability poses significant challenges calling for in-depth investigations of their thermal behavior. With this perspective, this work addresses the interdiffusion processes throughout thermal annealing of pseudomorphic GeSn binary and SiGeSn ternary alloys. In both systems, the initially pseudomorphic layers are relaxed upon annealing exclusively via thermally induced diffusional mass transfer of Sn. Systematic postgrowth annealing experiments reveal enhanced Sn and Si diffusion regimes that manifest at temperatures below 650 °C. The amplified low-temperature diffusion and the observation of only subtle differences between binary and ternary hint at the unique metastability of the Si-Ge-Sn material system as the most important driving force for phase separation.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000521131900001
DO  - DOI:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.4.033604
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/874249
ER  -