Ultra-high amplified strain on 200 mm optical Germanium-On-Insulator (GeOI) substrates: towards CMOS compatible Ge lasers

Abstract

Currently, one of the main challenges in the field of silicon photonics is the fabrication of efficient laser sources compatible with the microelectronic fabrication technology. An alternative to the complexity of integration of group III-V laser compounds is advancing from high tensile strains applied to germanium leading to improved emission properties by transforming the material from an indirect to a direct bandgap semiconductor. Theory predicts this transformation occurs at around 4.7% uniaxial tensile strain or 2.0% bi-axial tensile strain. Here, we report on ultrahigh strains obtained by amplifying the residual strain from novel optical Germanium-On-Insulator (GeOI) substrates fabricated by Smart Cut^TM technology and patterned with micro-bridges and micro-crosses. The high crystalline quality of the GeOI layers dramatically declined the mechanical failure limits when liberating the Ge microbridges. Record level Raman shift of 8.1 cm-1 for biaxial (micro-crosses) and 8.7 cm^-1 for uniaxial stress (micro-bridges) were reached by carefully designing the geometry of the micro-structures. The photoluminescence (PL) evolution is compared to theoretical calculations based on the tight-binding model revealing a detailed understanding of the influence of strain on the germanium optical properties.