Material Properties of Si-Ge/Ge Quantum Wells

Abstract

Germanium (Ge) and silicon-germanium (Si-Ge) have the potential to integrate optics with Si IC technology. The quantum-confined Stark effect, a strong electroabsorption mechanism often observed in III-V quantum wells (QWs), has been demonstrated in Si-Ge/Ge QWs, allowing optoelectronic modulators in such group IV materials. Here, based on photocurrent electroabsorption experiments on different samples and fitting of the resulting allowed and nominally forbidden transitions, we propose more accurate values for key parameters such as effective masses and band offsets that are required for device design. Tunneling resonance modeling including conduction band nonparabolicity was used to fit the results with good consistency between the experiments and the fitted transitions.