Ge hut cluster luminescence below bulk Ge band gap

Abstract

We report on the photoluminescence (PL) properties of Ge hut cluster islands on Si(001) that were overgrown at temperatures as low as 250 °C. We find that the island-related photoluminescence systematically redshifts as the overgrowth temperature is reduced from 500 to 360 °C, which is attributed to a reduced Ge segregation. For even lower overgrowth temperatures, the emission energy saturates at 0.63 eV or 1.96 μm, more than 110 meV smaller than the band gap of unstrained bulk Ge. We report a PL peak centered at 2.01 μm at low excitation power, in good agreement with the estimated transition energy for a spatially indirect transition between holes confined in the strained Ge island and electrons confined in the surrounding Si matrix. PL is observed up to a temperature of 185 K and an activation energy of 40 meV is deduced from fitting the temperature-dependent peak intensity. Annealing experiments reveal a systematic blueshift of the hut cluster-related PL, thus verifying unambiguously, that the PL signal originates from the hut clusters and not from defects.