UV nanoimprint lithography for the realization of large-area ordered SiGe/Si(001) island arrays

Abstract

We use UV nanoimprint lithography for the pit-patterning of silicon substrates. Ordered silicon-germanium islands are grown inside these pits by molecular-beam epitaxy on arrays of 3×3 mm2 and characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and photoluminescence (PL) measurements. AFM-based statistics reveals an extremely uniform size distribution of the islands in the patterned areas. These results are confirmed by very narrow and uniform PL peaks recorded at various positions across the patterned arrays.